Young Woman in Kimono – (Alfred Henry Maurer) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Alfred Henry Maurer

Date: 1901

Size: 87 x 83 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

A pale-skinned young woman wearing a kimono stands facing our left in a dim interior in this vertical painting. Her black hair is upswept, and her head tilts slightly down with eyes closed. The seat of a wooden, ladderback chair rests against the back of her knees. With her left hand, closer to us, she reaches back to grasp the top rail chair behind her. She holds a folded white and brown fan in her other hand, by her side. Her voluminous robe is fawn brown and trimmed with brilliant scarlet red down the collar and around the hem. The kimono has wide, long brown sleeves that come down past her hips. The red collar extends nearly to her knees, and another slash of red lines the deep sleeve on her extended arm. The robe pools on the floor at her feet. Above the red band along the bottom hem, the robe is painted loosely in patches and dabs of black, cobalt blue, turquoise, ruby red, and pale pink. Light from the upper right gives her peachy skin a golden tinge and highlights the furniture near her, while casting the rest of the room in shadow. She stands in front of a round table draped with a fabric mottled in earth brown and gray, and bordered with a dark brown band filled with smudges of orange and green. A book and a black carrying case or bag are barely visible on the table's shadowy surface. An image framed in light blue hangs on the olive-green wall over the table. The wall to our right, behind the woman, is mostly forest green. The artist signed the lower right in black paint, “Alfred H. Maurer.”