Pan Yuliang / 潘玉良

Seated Nude

1953

Oil gives the resting body weight without turning rest into spectacle

Enter the artwork study

Object in the Pan Yuliang study

Date: 1953
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 33 x 46.4 cm
Collection / record: Musee Cernuschi, Paris
Catalogue / accession: MC8813

01 / Why this work matters

Oil gives the resting body weight without turning rest into spectacle

The seated figure folds across a small horizontal canvas, her posture relaxed rather than ceremonially posed. Pan uses oil to establish bodily weight and the pressure of limbs against support, but keeps edges and surrounding space loose.

Scale is important. This is an intimate study rather than a monumental salon nude. The viewer encounters the body at close range as a person at rest, not an allegory. Pan's long practice from the model allows anatomical confidence to coexist with emotional understatement.

02 / Formal analysis

Five ways to read the visible evidence.

Move from color and composition toward the material surface and the space the work asks you to inhabit.

Color and light

Edges softening as the body turns away from light

Composition and rhythm

Weight concentrated where limbs meet the support

Line and gesture

A horizontal format following the folded pose

Surface and material

Space and scale

03 / History and object record

Place the image inside a life, a period, and a documented record.

Historical interpretation

Pan Yuliang, 1953

The painter and sculptor who claimed the modern body, the self-portrait, and Chinese line as sites of authorship across Shanghai, Rome, and Paris.

Exhibition and record history

What the cited record establishes

Recorded collection: Musee Cernuschi, Paris
Catalogue reference: MC8813
Exhibition chronology: The cited public record does not provide a complete exhibition chronology. Follow the primary record for provenance, display history, and future updates.

04 / Connections