This oil sketch of a naked young woman, shown from the waist up, is executed on the front side (recto) of the canvas, the verso of which is the portrait of Maud Abrantes. The model was probably the same one as in La Juive (The Jewess), which was displayed in a group show in Paris in 1908 (#9 in the Catalogue raisonne of Modigliani by Ambrogio Ceroni). A particular model is transformed by the painter into the image of a femme fatale in the Art Nouveau ideal. The drawing is forceful and determined: the young woman's torso and arms are indicated in rough outline, and thus the viewer's attention focuses on the face, with its firmly drawn eyes and eyebrows, curved nose, over-exaggerated mouth with red lips and powerful chin. The hair and hat are painted en masse, as if slightly washed this work borrows heavily from African art. The distorted forms and the carving of the lips are indebted to the graphic tradition of African sculpture. Other features such as the diagonal composition, the elaboration of the negative space around the figure, the half-closed eyes, and the general morbid look form part of the Art Nouveau and Secession conception.