After Schwartze: Puck
A professional model called Fortunata, a dog added a year later, and the only woman painter in the series.
Thérèse Schwartze · c. 1885 · Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The original
Thérèse Schwartze, Young Italian Woman with the Dog Puck, c. 1885, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam · Rijksmuseum
Monica's drawing
Baroque sleeve: acanthus, flaming heart, peony · Monica, Dark Autumn Studio
On skin
AI visualisation of a real design. Not a photograph of a tattoo.
The painting
Thérèse Schwartze was one of the most successful portrait painters in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century, a Dutch woman who signed her canvases Paris and Amsterdam, as she did here, top left. She began this picture in Paris in 1884 with a professional Italian model known as Fortunata, and added the dog, Puck, before showing it in Amsterdam the following year. It hangs in the Rijksmuseum. The white blouse, the red sash, the black velvet skirt, and a dog looking up at a woman who is looking down at her own thoughts.
The design
Monica's baroque sleeves on both arms, scrollwork and peonies, visible because we rolled up the sleeves that Schwartze painted full and puffed to the elbow.
Why this pairing
A woman painter, a working model, a dog with a name. Of all the pictures in the series this is the one where the sitter feels most like somebody you could meet. So we gave her arms that look like they have a life outside the studio.
