This nude study is for the figure of a girl seated with an older woman in Brown's painting 'Chaucer at the Court of Edward III' (1851, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). From a very early stage Brown had incorporated this character into his design. She is in the two earliest compositional studies at BMAG (1906P680 and 1906P681) in the same awkward pose, with her hands clasped in front of her and resting on her knee. However, Brown later changed her companion who sits on the right. In the BMAG compositional studies and an oil study at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, she sits next to an elderly male courtier but in a chalk study at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Beford, and a pen and ink at the Ashmolean, her companion has been replaced by a robust matron. The change in this figure has helped to put the early compositional studies in chronological order and confirmed that the BMAG studies are indeed the earliest.LM

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