Kneeling Nude

Mortimer Luddington Menpes, 1855-1938, was an Australian born English painter, printmaker, illustrator and author. Menpes left Australia in his early twenties with his family and came to London where he studied at the Royal Academy and other art institutions. In the 1880's he travelled to France where he met and befriended James McNeil Whistler and fell under his influence of Japanese art and motifs, following his travels to Japan he returned to London where he had his first one man exhibition. It was a great commercial success and it inspired him to travel further afield where he visited , India, Burma, China, Italy, Spain, and many other countries, and during the Boer War he travelled to South Africa as a war artist. Menpes was an efficient anecdotalist and attended and hosted many fashionable parties in London, where he mixed with all the high society personages of the time and he was also Godfather to Oscar Wilde's son Vyvyan. This picture of a seated nude is monogrammed MM and this is identical in all the Artist Signature and Monogram books that we have where we searched to identify the artist. However having concluded that this is most likely his own identification mark we are bound to offer this drawing as his own work but with the reserved position of attribution. During the period when Menpes was most prolific he would have been aware of the post impressionist painters in France, it is therefore assumed that this drawing is possibly influenced by his trips to Japan and also Amadeo Modigliani which to those familiar with his work should be able to see the similarity. The frame is modern and sufficient but as personal taste in frames is a difficult subject to breach we have left this frame in place and we have adjusted the price of the picture, as is, accordingly.