The heavy shapes of her swaying body are placed in full light, and the white drapery that surrounds her, like a mandorla or like the shell of the Venus Anadyomene, forms a strong contrast with, or even a total separation from, the group formed by the entwined devil and saint. At the time he painted this work, CŽzanne had just met Hortense Fiquet, and she may have been the model for this buxom nude. Apart from the unhappy liaison that led to his marriage in 1886 and a short sentimental affair in 1885, we do not know if CŽzanne had any romantic relationships. In his youth he had idealized romantic, pure love, but by 1885 he had become disillusioned, as he revealed in a letter to Zola in August 1885: ‘The brothel in town, or somewhere else, but nothing else. I pay for it. The word is dirty, but I need peace and that is the price I must pay.’