Focus on this artwork and explore the Painting.
Self-Portrait at 6th Wedding Anniversary was painted in Paris. Modersohn-Becker had moved from Worpswede near Bremen in Germany in February 1906. She had decided to leave her husband and Worpswede forever, and devote herself entirely to art. This self-portrait was painted in the spring. She is turned to the right in front of the viewer and she watches the viewer with a searching and questioning look. She has a white cloth on her hip. Her upper body is naked and on her neck she wears an amber necklace.
When Paula Modersohn-Becker painted this self-portrait, she was not pregnant, as the picture appears to show.
Paula Modersohn-Becker painted another nude self-portrait in Paris during the summer of 1906, now in the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland. As far as we know, these nudes were not shown during her lifetime to outsiders, but they became known after her death in November 1907.
Worpswede Bremen Paula Modersohn-Becker Kunstmuseum Basel