This beautiful watercolour depicts a dark-haired woman, in a green checkered dress and a blue apron with red decorations, sewing. Seated, with her legs crossed in brown stockings and blue slippers, the model stands out behind a table covered with a red tablecloth and a barely sketched bouquet.

The perspective treatment of the floor with large black tiles gives depth to the composition. The planes follow one another on the first ascending diagonal from left to right, with the model’s body and legs constituting the second diagonal.

A screen with blue lattices on the right reinforces the verticality of the work. With his head turned to the right, the only more shapeless area of the sheet, his gaze focused on a horizontal, the model smiles and lets us admire this very well constructed intimate scene.

Des couleurs vives – des bleus outremer, des rouges vif – excitent notre regard partout où il se porte. Le chausson bleu du pied droit défait ajoute une touche très humaine au portrait de Marie.

Bright colours – ultramarine blues, bright reds – excite our gaze wherever it goes. The blue slipper of the undone right foot adds a very human touch to Marie’s portrait.

The model was Marie Fohrer, née Lacaze, a little cousin of the artist who served as a model in many compositions with figures.