Woman Draped in a Crimson and Gold Wrap — Print & Oil Painting

A narrow upright format, roughly twice as high as it is broad, and the design puts up no argument. One standing figure fills that height from top to bottom, seen from behind, with no floor line, no horizon and nothing else admitted at all. The picture is a column.

The cloth is the subject. A crimson panel runs down its left edge like a stripe of selvedge, and the body of the wrap is a warm gold ochre flecked with small touches of yellow, green and grey. It is gathered at the hip by a hand brought round behind the back, then released to fall in one long sweep that spreads into a pool at the bottom of the canvas.

Above the wrap the handling changes completely. The back and the near shoulder are modelled in soft pinks and creams with the edges left open, the hair is drawn up into a small knot, and a thin string of beads crosses the nape as one of the few precise marks in the work.

Behind, the ground is built from long vertical drags of pearl grey, ochre and dull rose, pulled from top to bottom with a wide blade. Two short scarlet strokes stand at the right edge and a pale rectangle sits at the left, and neither describes anything. A small signature is scratched into the lower left corner.

Nothing in the setting places the figure in a room or a period, and the artist has clearly preferred it that way. From our Vietnam collection, near a woman in white drapery beside a dim reflection and three women in pink and red with their dresses billowing.