PROVENANCE Private Collection, Auckland Lot 87, Australian & European Paintings, Christies, Melbourne 27 April 1998

REFERENCE Frances Hodgkins database number FH0551 completefranceshodgkins.com

Something delicious happens when a woman artist paints female models in a boudoir, for the subjects often demonstrate an easy intimacy that can be absent when the artist is a man. Such is the case in at least four watercolours painted within the same room, either in Concarneau, where Hodgkins spent much of 1911, or St Valery-sur-Somme, where she took her summer class in 1912. [See FH0551 The Convalescent; FH0561 An Interior; FH0562 The Convalescent and FH0571 Two Girls in Conversation, completefranceshodgkins.com]. The models are almost certainly not just her students but her friends, a number of whom joined her classes at different times.

In each painting two figures are placed in or beside a single iron bedstead set against a corner of the chamber. Above the bed a plant rests on a window ledge, while beside the window to the left is a rosary, its crucifix suspended by the string of beads. To the right is a wooden armoire, sometimes with objects such as an oil lamp resting on the top, although in one version these are not visible. In An Interior (formerly in the collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), Hodgkins paints the convalescent lying back on her pillows, arms behind her head, deep in conversation with the seated figure beside the bed. In a second version of this composition one of the women perches at the end of the bed, the volumes of her dress hard to determine among the mass of coverings on the bed.

By changing her own position, Hodgkins views the scene from a different angle in each work, so there is no sense of repetition apart from the furnishings within the room. In both Two Girls in Conversation and Convalescent, the figures seem to be in a kind of reverie rather than engaged in conversation, possibly brought on by the length of time spent holding the pose. The recovering invalid's hair is gathered up in a bun, her hand gripping the iron bed end as if about to leap down to the floor.

The model appears younger, gazing across the room as if distracted, while the other woman looks down, her hands clasped over the short apron covering her lap. Light from the window plays across the bed linen, the delicate washes used to create the pillow blending with the wall behind. Each brushstroke seems to dance across the paper, conjuring form as if from the air.

MARY KISLER