How you can use this image
This image has been made available under a Creative Commons Zero licence (CC0). This means it can be used in any way, for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Please acknowledge the collection who own the work with a photo credit — this helps spread the word about their resources.
To learn more about image reuse and Creative Commons, please see our image use page.
DownloadNotes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
Gwen John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1895 to 1898, a school noted for its progressive teaching and acceptance of female students. She moved to Paris in 1903, where she remained for the rest of her life. A reserved but tenacious personality, she formed few but intense relationships, including with the poet Rainer Rilke and sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she served as the model for his unfinished monument to Whistler. She converted to Catholicism in 1913 during a time of intense anticlericalism from France’s Third Republic. Portraits of nuns featured regularly in her studies of the life in and around the convent of the Dominican Sisters of Charity in Meudon, the suburb of Paris where she lived. – Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020
Title
Study of a Nun
Date
c.1915
Medium
oil on board laid on panel
Measurements
H 60.8 x W 40.5 cm
Accession number
B1993.30.14
Acquisition method
Paul Mellon Collection
Work type
Painting