Seated Nude was most likely studied from life. It depicts a female model with her body hunched over and a hand covering the eyes in an attitude of melancholy. She is sitting on a bench seat with a mirror directly behind her and an oblique reflection shows the silhouette of her back. The precise date of this work is unknown, but it uses several stylistic traits that Kitaj was exploring in the mid-seventies. The drawing was initially drawn in charcoal with acute sensitivity to modelling areas of light and shade, and it was then coloured with pastel—a medium that Kitaj only started to use in 1975 after seeing pastels by Edgar Degas at the Petit Palais in Paris.

Seated Nude was given as a present by Kitaj to a family member in the late nineteen-eighties. As such, it was never recorded by his long-term dealer, Marlborough Fine Art, and it has not previously been exhibited.