Woman in Sage Ao Dai Seated Beside a Vase of White Flowers — Print & Oil Painting

The pose is a triangle. One knee is drawn up with a hand laid over it, the other leg is tucked away beneath the dress, and the free hand is set flat on the ground out to the side, so the figure tapers from a broad base at the floor up to the point of the hat. Nothing supports her but the ground she is sitting on.

Blue has been applied to everything without exception. The wall behind, the floor, the dress, the hat and the skin are all versions of one cool blue grey, lighter at the upper left where a soft glow sits behind her shoulder and deepening into the corners. Because the light itself is coloured rather than white, the sage of the ao dai reads as a green that has been sunk in water.

The hat is tilted forward and down with its underside toward us and its ribs drawn as fine concentric lines. It leaves the face clear while shading the brow, and beneath it two heavy black falls of hair come down in front of the shoulders. Her eyes are lowered and the expression is entirely still.

The vase is the only object in the picture carrying a pattern. It stands on the floor at the right, a blue and white porcelain jar with a short neck, its decoration given as small loose marks rather than as a described design. Out of it rise thin bare stems with sparse white blossom and a few small leaves, drawn with a dry brush straight against the wall.

The measured hue sits in the cyans and the saturation is moderate, both of which the surface bears out. Between the seated figure and the vase the floor is left completely empty, and that gap is what makes the two of them read as a pair. Part of our Vietnam collection, near a woman in white ao dai resting her head on her hand by a vase and a pensive woman in green ao dai beside white chrysanthemums.