About this work
My research has surfaced a closely related work — *Untitled (Woman Removing Her Stockings)*, a Conte crayon on paper dated c. 1905, signed lower right "E Shinn," measuring 20.25 × 25.2 inches — which appears to be the work sold under the title *Untitled Silk Stockings*. The subject matter, medium, date, and "untitled" designation all align. I have sufficient grounding in Shinn's documented practice around this subject and period to write an accurate description.
The eye goes straight to the leg. A woman — caught in a private, unhurried moment — attends to her stockings, her figure rendered in the swift, sure strokes of Conte crayon that Shinn wielded like a reporter's shorthand. His images of ladies in their boudoirs borrowed directly from the Impressionist aesthetic of Edgar Degas , and this drawing makes that debt legible: the cropped view, the unguarded pose, the sense of having stepped through a door uninvited. The composition is spare — no elaborate setting competes with the figure — and that spareness gives it charge. The Conte line moves economically, darkening where cloth gathers or where a limb bends, leaving the paper to breathe where skin catches light. Readers of mass circulation magazines of the era knew Shinn as "the creator of slinky voluptuous ladies with incredibly long legs and arms," and this drawing shows exactly why: the elongation is deliberate, almost decorative, but the draftsmanship underneath is forensically observed.
The work dates to around 1905 — the period when Shinn was experimenting with pastel and related drawing media, shifting his focus toward uptown subjects, theater performers, and fashionable society.
Nudes and figure studies were a recurring subject in Shinn's work; his life-drawing skills were more developed than many of his fellow Ashcan painters. Among that group, the intimate boudoir scene was distinctly his territory — a key aspect of Shinn's influence lies in his depiction of women: unlike many male artists of his era, he portrayed female figures not as passive muses but as active, often ambiguous presences. This drawing sits in that lineage: the woman is absorbed in herself, indifferent to the viewer, which makes the looking feel both intimate and slightly illicit.
As wall art, *Untitled Silk Stockings* rewards a room with the confidence to hold something quiet and a little electric. It doesn't need scale or color to command attention — the graphic clarity of Conte on paper does the work. A study, a library, or a bedroom with dark walls and warm light would suit it well; so would a narrow hallway where it can be encountered up close, the way Shinn clearly intended it to be seen. Shinn presents performance and private life alike as enlivening and sensuous experiences — and this drawing, more than his theatrical can
