Fernando Botero, Donna Sdraiata, 2003

09 January 2025

Executed in 2003, Donna Sdraiata is a characteristically playful and elegant example of Fernando Botero’s reclining female sculptures. Containing references to the history of sculpture viewed from the Colombian artist’s characteristically voluminous lens, it brings "boterismo" — his singular, eponymous way of rendering human and non-human subjects — into three dimensions.

A reclining figure rendered in smooth marble with rarely-achieved clarity, Donna Sdraiata is reminiscent of both Classical and pre-Columbian art. Propped delicately on one elbow, her body features exaggerated curves - ample thighs, a rounded belly, with her legs partially bent. The marble’s shine accentuates the smoothness of the form and perfectly captures the essence of Botero’s aesthetic: “[Sculptures] permit me to create real volume. One can touch the forms, one can give them smoothness, the sensuality that one wants,”^[1] he says.

The subject’s pose might be understood as an homage to the sculptures of Renaissance masters like Donatello and Michelangelo, both of whom he studied during a three-year stint spent in Italy. Equally, the figure’s rounded edges echoes the chacmools of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture. These idols, which took the form of reclining bodies with their heads rotated 90 degrees, fulfilled a number of ritualistic and social functions — from sacrifice to gifting — and can now be found in museums around the world.

Botero was a known admirer of pre-Columbian art, and often referenced it in his work as a way of reaching towards an authentic mode of representation as a Latin American artist. As the artist said,  “I study pre-Columbian art a lot because of its history and its element of originality. We Latin American artists have a need to find our own authenticity—some position that is not colonial,”^[2]

Of course, the reclining nude is an image that has permeated art history for centuries since, and not without its share of controversy. From Henri Matisse’s Odalisque figures, criticised for their colonial, orientalist gaze, to Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), a painting that sparked outrage in 19th century France for its unique treatment of a taboo subject. It is a trope that has been rendered and received differently across various times and geographies — a subject that carries within it some of the most important and formative debates in the history of art.

Here, Botero honours the artists who have gone before him as well as adding his own voice to the historical conversation, creating a bridge between history and modernity.

The figure of Donna Sdraiata is one that Botero has returned to regularly in the last four decades — varying in size from domestic to monumental. Similar examples held in museum collections include Reclining Nude (1984) (held by the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Japan) and Reclining Woman (1993) (held by the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein).

This sculpture will be on view in Singapore at the upcoming exhibition ‘Homage to Botero’ at Opera Gallery.