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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.”

Alfred H. Maurer

Young Woman in Kimono, c. 1901

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 76.2 × 73.18 cm (30 × 28 13/16 in.)

framed: 87 × 82.87 × 5.4 cm (34 1/4 × 32 5/8 × 2 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (Gift of Edith Newlands Johnston and Janet Newlands Johnston)

Accession Number

2014.136.70

Artists / Makers

Alfred H. Maurer (painter) American, 1868 - 1932

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower right: Alfred H. Maurer

Provenance

Probably by descent in the family of Francis G. Newlands [1846-1917], Washington; his daughters, Edith Newlands Johnston [1876-1965, Mrs. Charles Haven Johnston], and Janet Newlands Johnston [1878-1963, Mrs. William Bernard Johnson], Washington; gift 1950 to Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Exhibition History

1908: Possibly A Special Exhibition of Paintings by the French Impressionists and the Works of Six American Artists Residing in Paris, Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, 1908, no. 91, as Girl in Brown Kimono.

1908: Possibly Special Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Six American Artists Residing in France, Art Institute of Chicago; Memphis Society of Fine Arts, Detroit Art Museum, 1908, no. 23, as Girl in Brown Kimono.

1958: A Retrospecitve Selection of Oils by Alfred H. Maurer, Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, 1958. checklist no. 1.

1973: Alfred H. Maurer, 1868-1932, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1973, no. 3.

1973: Alfred H. Maurer: An American Modernist, University of Minnesota Gallery, Minneapolis, 1973, unpublished checklist.

1985: Henri's Circle, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 20 April-16 June 1985, unnumbered checklist.

1988: Le Japonisme, Grand Palais, Paris; National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 1988, no. 100.

1995: At Home with Art: Paintings in American Interiors, 1780-1920, Katonah Museum of Art, New York, 1995, unnumbered checklist.

1996: The Kimono Inspiration: Art and Art-to-Wear in America, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, 1996-1997, unpublished checklist.

2002: The Gilded Cage: Views of American Women, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2002, unpublished checklist.

2004: Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2008: The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2013: American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013 - 28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

2015: Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, 2015-2016 (shown only in Andover and Bentonville).

Bibliography

2003: Epstein, Stacey Beth. "Alfred H. Maurer: Aestheticism to Modernism, 1897-1916." Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 2003: 46, 50-51, repro.

2011: Naeem, Asma. "Alfred Henry Maurer, Young Woman in Kimono." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 184-185, 275, repro.