Venus with Seashell

A nude figure kneels against a flat blue ground — sea or sky, possibly both — with a large spiraling white seashell beside her at the lower right. The figure is drawn in quick black contour lines and filled with washes of pink, sienna, and warm brown. Her head is bowed, her hair dark and loosely sketched. The blue is painted in broad horizontal strokes, wet and uneven, with the paper showing through in places. Dufy's signature is in the lower right corner. The title places the figure as Venus, born from the sea, but the treatment is casual and fast.