The painter paints her reflection, surrounded by the themes of her inspiration : the setting sun on the Dune du Pyla, the green reflections of the water of the Bassin d’Arcachon, the warm colours of the roofs of a Spanish village, the tall pines of the Landes and the blue cedar of the garden of her house in Villeneuve-le-Comte. A Lorraine chair, a book by Cervantes and a bunch of arbutus and fig branches make up the foreground.

The painter’s dark eyes, haloed by curly brown hair and a black collar under her artist’s smock, stand out clearly against the soberly treated face. The artist’s hands hold the “tools of her passion”, the brush in her right hand and the cloth in her left.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas confirmed these correspondences between these roots when he wrote in the preface to his catalogue raisonné : ” Germaine Lacaze will tell you that she has painted Spain because she has rediscovered the light of our Bordeaux region and the warm vibrations of the Landes. ”

A mature self-portrait, this painting of a mirror reflecting the painter’s sources of inspiration becomes a pictorial testament: the work of art is a cerebral creation resulting from the assimilation of the emotions of the surrounding nature, in the time-space of a life.

This painting was awarded the Grand Prix of the Taylor Foundation in 1979.