Woman in Interior

Maker Alfred Henry Maurer (American, 1868 - 1932)

Collections

American Paintings Selections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1901

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 30 × 28 1/2 in. (76.2 × 72.4 cm.) frame: 39 3/4 × 38 1/2 × 3 in. (101 × 97.8 × 7.6 cm.)

SignedSigned in lower right of recto: Alfred H. Maurer Signed and titled on a wood fillet affixed to the stretcher

InscribedSigned in lower right of recto: Alfred H. Maurer Signed and titled on a wood fillet affixed to the stretcher

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation

Status

Not on view

Label TextBetween 1897 and 1904, Alfred Maurer painted elegant figure studies and captivating scenes of urban life. As did many of his figure paintings from this time, Woman in Interior depicts a solitary woman wearing an elaborate, voluminous dress. She is in front of a plain background, the wall decorated only with a small medallion and the corner of a frame. The painting reflects Maurer's interest in James Abbott McNeill Whistler's use of harmonious color schemes and artfully arranged forms. Both artists' poetic, evocative studies are less about the subject's identity than they are about the nature of painting itself. Artists influenced by Whistler's experimental "arrangements" and "harmonies," including Maurer, Frederick Frieseke, and Julian Alden Weir, treated the human figure as they would an element of a still life: as a source of the shapes, colors, and textures that made up the composition.

Object number83.8.33