Portrait of the Countess Mathieu de Noailles (Anna Elisabeth de Brancovan), Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta
Link is to page with high resolution image on Wikimedia Commons. Original is in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.
Spanish painter Ignacio Zuloaga, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, brings together the traditions of Spanish painting from preceding centuries and the Post-Impressionist flavor of his time in this beautiful reclining portrait of a well known Parisian poet and novelist Anna de Noailles, who was the subject of portraits by a number of other artists.
Zuloaga’s portrait is dramatically theatrical, not just in the curtain-framed setting, but in the striking warm light that sweeps across her face, shoulders and gown. The face is framed by the sitter’s shock of dark hair, which is echoed in the dark tones in the cover of the setee.
