Notes

In 1932, the artist studied under Georges Desvallières and Maurice Denis at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and briefly under André Lhote. Exhibited at Galerie Druet, Salon des Tuileries and Salon d’Automne; included in Femmes Artistes Moderne in 1937. Major exhibition in 1967 at Galerie Jacques Massol, Paris.

Maurice Denis, Maud Sumner’s teacher, mentor and friend while she studied in Paris, was a friend and colleague of the post-impressionist painters Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, whom Sumner met while staying at the home of the Denis family. The present lot recalls the intimate domestic scenes painted by both Bonnard and Vuillard, their ‘figures in an interior’, usually women, shown seated, in conversation, sewing, in the garden, or in front of a mirror. The woman in this painting wears a summery floral dress whose pattern of red and purple flowers links compositionally to the red blooms on the dresser and the warm tones in the woman’s face. She appears at first to be examining her own reflection and the flower she is holding in her hand, but she also looks through the mirror and back out into the room, making eye contact with the painter and the viewer.