Oil on canvas “portrait of a woman with an ermine coat”. The ermine is often associated with royal mottos: preferring death to defilement. It signifies moral purity and, in this sense, adorns the dress of high dignitaries of the Church, State and Justice. In our portrait it is about the will of the painter or sponsor to underline the moral purity of the woman represented. A real paradox with its languid gaze, its eye-catchers and its fan … blatant instruments of coquetry. A distinguished and coquettish lady had to know how to handle the fan and its language: closed in the left hand: “I am not celibate”
Around 1855.
France.
Signed Edward 1855 lower right.
Height: 115 cm (45,2 in)
Width: 90 cm (35, 4 in)
Depth: 2 cm (0,7 in)
