Sloan’s nude pays homage to the grand western tradition of the reclining nude female by such renowned artists as Titian, Francisco de Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Edouard Manet. Sloan’s modern-day “Venus” appears to be a self-assured woman enjoying a siesta. Her complacent and oblique countenance assures the (male) viewer that his observation of this intimate scene is fully sanctioned. Although the model is presumably contemporary, the painting veers away from the discomfiting inequities of sex, race, and class that have existed throughout time.
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