Standing Beauty in a Dance Pose

Artists

Description

This painting in vertical hanging scroll format depicts a beautiful woman wearing a black kimono embroidered with plum blossoms, maple leaves, and stylized Chinese characters, captured mid-step in a dancing position. She stands with knees bent to the viewer’s right, but with body and shoulders twisted back towards the viewers left, her head turned back behind her, her gaze focused to the left beyond the frame of the painting. Her right arm stretches outward behind her, allowing the fabric of her sleeve to fall open and reveal its designs, but her right hand remains concealed. Written in cursive script, the character for warbler (uguisu) appears among the plum blossoms on the sleeve. On the lower portion of her robe, the character for deer (shika) appears among the maple leaves. The beauty stands on a plain background, save for the fourteen character poem calligraphed at the top of the painting, and the signature and two seals near the upper left.

Dimensions

painting proper: H. 127.7 x W. 48 cm (50 1/4 x 18 7/8 in.) mounting, including suspension cord and roller ends: H. 227 x W. 67.9 cm (89 3/8 x 26 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Louis V. Ledoux Collection, New York (by 1948), by descent; to his son L. Pierre Ledoux, New York (1948-2001), by inheritance; to his widow Joan F. Ledoux, New York, (2001-2013), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2013. Footnotes: 1. Louis V. Ledoux (1880-1948) 2. L. Pierre Ledoux (1912-2001) 3. On long term loan to Harvard Art Museums from 1981 to 2013.