A bather's golden back, a red wall and an earthen water pot

Seen from behind, a woman sits at her bath: her black hair knotted high, her golden back bare to the waist, a terracotta pot raised at her shoulder by one hand. The wall behind her burns Indian red, a pink cloth hangs at the right with a grey-blue garment thrown over it, and at her feet a black lota and a small dish holding a bright orange flame-offering complete the corner. Painted at Saraya in 1940, it is Sher-Gil's quietest nude — Gauguin's bathers remembered through Ajanta.

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) was born in Budapest to a Sikh aristocrat and a Hungarian opera singer, trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and returned to India in 1934 determined to paint the country's people rather than its picturesque surface. In the seven years left to her she fused the flat colour and frontal stillness of Ajanta murals and Pahari miniatures with the Post-Impressionist lessons of Gauguin and Cézanne, producing the foundation of modern Indian painting. She died in Lahore at twenty-eight; her work is declared a National Art Treasure by the Government of India and is held chiefly by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.