Woman in a Striped Dress

1895

Oil on canvas, 65.7 × 58.7 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington

Two women arrange flowers in a room where clothing, blossoms and background form one patchwork. Cut flowers and greenery fill the right half of the canvas.

The sitter's features blur into the patterned room around her. Such panels sometimes hung unframed on patterned wallpaper, as if continuing the room.
It is one of five decorative panels Thadée Natanson ordered for himself and Misia.
Look at the red-and-white stripes, which echo the flower patterns beside them.
The color range stays small, mostly deep reds set off by cream, green and gold.
Paul Mellon gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1983.

Thadée Natanson published the magazine La Revue blanche. The red-haired woman may be Misia, a musician.

Intimism: A label for small paintings of family and friends in cramped, patterned rooms, a style two of the group pursued after 1899.

Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington, Open Access · CC0