The Sleeping Model is an oil on canvas genre painting by the British artist William Powell Frith, from 1853.Bills & Knight p.133
History and description It shows a scene in the artist's own studio as he tries to paint a model who has fallen asleep in her chair. It features a self-portrait of himself as he doggedly continues to paint the young woman, an orange seller, smiling and awake. Frith had a great deal of trouble persuading the woman, whom he encountered in the street, to pose for him, partly due to the fact that she was a Catholic. Having eventually coaxed her to sit, she then fell asleep while he was working.Royal Academy of Arts The incident led Frith to produce this work inspired by what happened.Wood p.34-35 It depicts a painter in the act who doing a portrait of a woman who has fallen asleep in a chair, while holding one orange in her hand. An almost empty basket of fruits lies in the ground, near her. When Frith was elected to be a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1853, he presented this as his diploma work. It remains in the collection of the Royal Academy.Art UK
References
Bibliography Bills, Mark & Knight, Vivien (ed.) William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age. Yale University Press, 2006 Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. William Powell Frith: The People's Painter. Bloomsbury, 2019. Wood, Christopher. William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World. Sutton Publishing, 2006.