Wilson Steer, one of the most impressionist of British painters, posed his nudes in everyday settings, and here the model is playfully trying on a hat she has found in the studio. Steer did not exhibit this sketch, and it was chosen for the Tate Gallery directly from his studio in 1941, by the then-Director Sir John Rothenstein. Steer told him ‘friends told me it was spoiled by the hat; they thought it indecent that a nude should be wearing a hat, so it’s never been shown’. ...Another nude study ‘The Black Hat’, which in 1945 belonged to Mrs Fox, shows this model (a Miss Geary) wearing the same hat, but standing instead of being seated. [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/steer-seated-nude-the-black-hat-n05261] Gallery label, February 2016