Seated Nude painted circa 1923-24 is highly unusual in Gwen John's ouevre as the sitter is depicted nude. The unidentified model in the present work posed for a small group of nude paintings executed by John during this period and include the very similar Unfinished Study of a Nude Girl, Seated and another more unfinished version Study of a Seated Nude Girl. The sitter also appears clothed in Woman with Hands Crossed also from 1923-34 (sold Christie's, London, 10 June 2005, lot 10).

This present work was originally acquired by John's American patron and friend John Quinn, who originally owned two nude paintings, the second of which is now lost. Quinn was a successful New York lawyer and amassed an impressive collects ion of British, Irish and European art. Quinn met Gwen's brother, Augustus John, in 1909 who recommended his sisters paintings. This introduction sparked a lifelong relationship and Quinn's patronage went some way to allay John's financial worries. In total Quinn acquired thirty nine works by John during his lifet.mes , the primary reason why John's work is so well represented in public institutions and private collects ions in the United States. When Quinn's estate and collects ion was sold in New York in 1927 Seated Nude was described in the catalogue thus:

Like nearly all of John's output this small group of nude works are concerned less with conveying the character or personality of the sitter and instead act as a vehicle for her to explore her primary concern: the formal aspects of painting. They are not an exercise in portraiture in the conventional sense - they are not commissioned, the sitter is unknown and they do not convey an overwhelming concern with character. Rather, in the delicate variations of tone, colour, texture and arrangement, they reveal a typically modernist engagement with the process of picture-making. This harmony of tone and palette is clearly influenced by James McNeill Whistler under whom John studied in Paris, after her studentship at the Slade in London. Whister's teachings had a profound impact on John's approach to painting. When Gwen's brother Augustus John visited her in Paris he commented to Whistler that his sister's work showed a good sense of character, to which Whistler swiftly replied:

1923 represents an important shift in John's painting and Alicia Foster in her essay for the catalogue accompanying the Tate show Gwen John and Augustus John (2004-2005) comments: 'From about 1923, distinct changes occur in Gwen John's paintings. The palette has a new mauvish cast, the range of values has broadened, and the contrasts between light and dark have strengthened. Paint is more boldly applied and spontaneously dragged onto the canvas ... The subject is the same - figures of women - but those figures have altered. Their outlines are now jagged, sharply etched against the backgrounds. The bodies are slender, the hands bonier, the faces more stylised: the high set eyes and knife-edge noses are hieroglyphs of features.' (quoted in, D. Fraser Jenkins and C. Stephens (eds.), exh.cat., Gwen John and Augustus John, Tate, London, 2004, p. 178).

Seated Nude comes from the collects ion of the late Richard and Sheila Attenborough who acquired the work from Browse & Darby, London, in 1986 and who lent the work to the Tate exhibition in 2004-2005.