A major work by Jenny Saville (b.1970) is to be sold at Ramsay Cornish Auctioneers in Edinburgh on May 6.
Estimated at £150,000-200,000, Nude Study is similar in pose and execution to the artist’s later painting Branded, which sold for a premium-inclusive £1.49m at Christie’s in 2011. Saville was her own model in both, painting herself as a defiant fleshy woman, grasping her belly with one hand and glaring out of the canvas.
The 3ft 1in x 2ft 2in (93 x 66cm) oil on paper dates from 1992 and was bought by the vendor from Saville’s graduation show at the Glasgow School of Art the same year.
The painting has been on loan to the New Hall Art Collection in Cambridge, which exhibits Europe’s largest collection of art solely by women, since 2013, and featured recently in the exhibition Flesh at York Art Gallery.
