Nude Woman in a Red Armchair is one of the famous sequence of portraits that Picasso made of Marie-Thérèse Walter at his country property at Boisgeloup. Marie-Thérèse is presented here - as in most of her portraits - as a series of sensuous curves. Even the scrolling arms of the chair have been heightened and exaggerated to resemble the rounded forms of her body.

The face is a double or metamorphic image: the right side can also be seen as the face of a lover in profile, kissing her on the lips.