Seated Nude, 1916 by Amedeo Modigliani

Perhaps the most beautiful of all Modigliani's nudes, it is one of the earliest. It does not yet betray the over-fluency of line that leads the eye to slip all too easily over the profiles of the later nudes. Here, the most elegant and delicate profiles are conveyed by a somewhat broken line, sometimes heavy, more often light, in places made only by the boundaries between tones.

Of all the nudes, this seems the most likely to have been based on Modigliani's first companion Beatrice Hastings. Although the features are generalized and adapted to the needs of the composition, they are not incompatible with hers. If the hair is darker than the known portraits suggest, it might be because Modigliani wished to adapt it to the colours of the composition.