This nude is a straight forward academic study; and yet the originality of its conception lends a new lease of life to the theme. It should really be called an ‘undressed’ figure rather than a nude for the model wears black stockings. The distinction is important as Lautrec had no intention of following in the footsteps of Alexandre Cabanel or William Bouguereau, who filled the Salons with nudes in academic or mythological guise. On the contrary, he took the same direct and simple approach as Manet or Degas, artists whose work he had probably not seen at this point , but whose modern nudes had their precedents in the stockinged women of Delacroix and Courbet.

Lautrec focused on the essential lines of the body . This nude, with its delicate line and its pink and grey colour scheme, hints at Symbolism, foreshadowing the Rose Period of Picasso.