“Standing Female Nude” is a monologue “spoken” by an artist’s model in a Paris studio. Her concern is to “make a few francs” while his is to create a work of art and a reputation for himself as a great artist. She admits to being “a river whore” who sells her body in more ways than one, but the two are using each other to an equivalent extent.
In the first stanza, the model crudely sets out her stall as she displays “Belly nipple arse in the window light,” but also reflects on the outcome of the encounter “I shall be represented analytically and hung in great museums". The bourgeoisie will coo / at such an image of a river whore. They call it Art.” She is therefore amused as the pretentiousness of the exercise that transforms a whore (which is her perspective) into great art (which is the viewpoint of people other than herself).
There is a telling comment in “he drains the colour from me”, in that the physical ordeal of standing still for six hours somehow transforms the colour of her skin into an image on the canvas. The pain is hers, but the art is someone else’s.
The second stanza states the contrast in attitudes in the clearest possible terms. On the question of “Art” she says “Maybe”, but then: “He is concerned with volume, space, I with the next meal.” However, he sees her thinness as “not good” not out of concern for her welfare but because it will affect her shape as a model. She continues to daydream about her future as a work of art: “I can see the Queen of England gazing on my shape. Magnificent, she murmurs, moving on.” However, she sees the irony in this situation, so that “it makes me laugh”.
Crossing the gap between the third and fourth stanzas is: “His name is Georges. They tell me he’s a genius”. This seems to indicate that the artist in question is Georges Braque (1882-1963) and the painting that Duffy has in mind is probably his “Large Nude” of 1908, which certainly emphasises the “belly nipple arse” of the poem’s second line. This also adds something to “he drains the colour from me”, mentioned above, in that this painting is notable for its subdued tones. If this is the painting in question, then the “Queen of England” mentioned in the second stanza must either mean the wife of the British king or be a future “in the tea leaves” prediction of a time when Britain would next be ruled by a queen.
The third stanza is interesting for the description of the power play between the two characters. The model is aware of the sexual power she possesses, in that the artist “stiffens for my warmth”, but this is followed by: “He possesses me on canvas”, although this possession is also expressed with sexual symbolism in “as he dips the brush / repeatedly into the paint”. The tables are turned again in the model’s mind as she retorts: “Little man, you’ve not the money for the
