Portrait of a Woman

Monticelli is best known for women in silk and finery, scattered in twos and threes across imagined parks and garden parties. This one, painted around 1871, is different. She is alone, unnamed, and shown plainly, a single sitter looked at directly rather than a figure arranged for effect. The face and the pale collar carry most of the finish, while the dress and background loosen into dark, broken strokes. Who she was has not come down with the picture. She may have been a Marseille acquaintance or a hired model, set down for the pleasure of the paint as much as for any likeness, which is often as much as his portraits tell us.