Maja

Maja from 1900, now in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, depicts a subject identified by the name 'Maja' — possibly a reference to Goya's famous Maja paintings, or simply a name. If there is a conscious Goya reference, Zorn is placing himself in a lineage from Velázquez and Goya through Manet's Olympia, each successive reclining or posed female nude commenting on its predecessors. The Alte Nationalgalerie's collection of late nineteenth-century European painting makes this an important institutional context for understanding how Zorn's work was received on the continent in the early years of the twentieth century.

Zorn's handling would reflect his most confident technical register, with the figure rendered in his characteristic combination of decisive main strokes and subtle secondary adjustments. The composition's formal ambition — suggested by the prestigious Berlin collection context — implies a more fully resolved surface than some of his studies.