Self-Portrait on Her Sixth Wedding Anniversary

1906

Oil or oil tempera (sources differ), 101.8 × 70.2 cm. Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen

A woman painter shows herself bare to the hips, in an amber necklace, hands around a rounded belly. The museum that owns it counts it as the earliest nude self-portrait by a woman in art history.

Look at the lower right: a painted inscription gives her age as 30 and names the anniversary.
Dry, matte paint gives the skin a chalky look against a dappled green ground.
The body is reduced to broad, heavy forms under a level gaze, so the picture reads as a frank statement about herself rather than a flattering likeness.
Curator Jay A. Clarke treats her nude self-portraits of 1906 as statements of independence.

She married the painter Otto Modersohn in May 1901, so this was really her fifth anniversary; the title's count includes the wedding day.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art