The Model's Rest

The work Descanso do Modelo, also known as Descanso da Modelo, is an oil painting on canvas, dated 1882, by the Brazilian painter and designer José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, born in Itu. The main scene of the painting is an atelier in a moment of intimacy, where a half-naked model, at the interval of her pose, plays a song on the piano, in this moment of rest, the painter who previously portrayed the girl, smokes a cigarette, appreciates and applauds the song. This canvas portrays some of the bourgeois customs and everyday life of the author's time. The realistic work, produced in Paris during José Ferraz's first stay in Europe, today helps compose the MNBA's 19th-century Brazilian art gallery, the National Museum of Fine Arts, in Rio de Janeiro. The painting has four versions that have moved through private collections since the 19th century, except for the canvas that is part of the MNBA collection, acquired by the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in 1882. Among the four versions of different sizes are: two by José Ferraz de Almeida himself and two by the painter Oscar Pereira da Silva.