The Bouquet

In the pictureOn white paper, a woman in a navy dress stands looking to the right. A pink feather plume rises from her dark hat, and over her right arm she carries a pink bouquet mixed with green leaves together with a tasseled gray lace shawl. She wears white lace cuffs and brown gloves, and holds a small dark object in her left hand. Her skirt is drawn up at the front and puffed out at the back, and black shoes show at her toes. A pale gray-brown wash spreads behind the figure like a shadow, and the signature 'E. Duez' is at the lower right.

BackgroundErnest-Ange Duez (1843–1896) was born in Paris and liked to paint Parisian society women and fashionable dress. This watercolor bears no date, but it was in the collection that the New York collector Catharine Lorillard Wolfe bequeathed to the museum in 1887, so it must have been painted before then. The skirt puffed out at the back and the close-fitting bodice also match the fashions of the 1880s. The composition, with the background left empty and a single figure standing alone, resembles a fashion illustration showing off the latest dress. It measures 32.4 × 21.3 cm.

Puzzle tipThe colors fall into three broad groups: the navy dress, the pink bouquet and the white paper. Fitting the pink plume of the hat, the face and the bouquet first establishes the upper center of the picture. Divide the dress top from bottom by the light lines along its folds; the brown gloves, white cuffs and tassels of the gray shawl serve as small markers. After joining the pale shadow pieces at the bottom, fill in the white paper pieces starting with those that touch the figure's outline. 48 pieces is a good fit.