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THOMAS EAKINS (1844-1916)
Series of 7 photographs from the
Naked Series,
with a female model wearing a blindfold.
Albumen prints,
each image measuring 2
3
/
4
x1 inches (7x2.5 cm.), overall size 2
3
/
4
x7
1
/
4
inches (7x19.7 cm.), the
original blue mount 3x10 inches (7.6x25.4 cm.), with Olympia Galleries’ notation O-55-3310, in
pencil, on mount verso. Circa 1883
[12,000/18,000]
A scarce photograph from Eakins’
Naked Series
.The artwork was acquired from Olympia Galleries
by Robert Chaddell, a Private Collector.
The groundbreaking show of Thomas Eakins’ photographs exhibited at the Olympia Gallery in 1976,
brought to light a small body of superb vintage photographic prints created by the great American
painter in 1883.The photograph offered in this lot originally belonged to Edward H. Coates, a main-
line Philadelphian who was Chairman of the Committee of Instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Art’s Board of Directors during Eakins’ tenure as a popular instructor.
Nineteenth-century European painters and sculptors artists regularly sourced photographs of nude
models as documentary aids. Eakins, however, created his own photographic images to encourage
students to develop a deeper understanding of human anatomy. His experimentation with
photography was at the height of the Victorian era, when strictures governing public behavior,
especially for women, were rigid.Although art classes were gender segregated, his use of both nude