Reclining Nude

In the final twenty years of his life, Picasso painted many odalisques – female figures resembling the denizens of a harem. The model for these late works was Jacqueline Roque, the woman who would become his second wife in 1961. The artist’s perception of Jacqueline’s features as strikingly Oriental probably contributed to his habitual depiction of her in the pose of an odalisque – here with a direct, forthright gaze.