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Portrait en buste d'une femme de face, entièrement voilée de noir dont seul le visage triangulaire est visible.
Religieuse. Portrait de Germaine Dawis, HENNER Jean-Jacques (Bernwiller, 1829 - Paris, 1905) 1903, Paris, peinture à l'huile © Jean-Jacques Henner, Religieuse. Portrait of Germaine Dawis, 1903© RMN-Grand Palais / Mathieu Rabeau
Plan rapproché du portrait en buste d'une femme de face, entièrement voilée de noir dont seul le visage triangulaire est visible.
Religieuse. Portrait de Germaine Dawis, HENNER Jean-Jacques (Bernwiller, 1829 - Paris, 1905) 1903, Paris, peinture à l'huile © RMN-Grand Palais / Mathieu Rabeau

This work seems to take up the codes of fantasy heads painted from the front, but here the fringe and thick red hair are replaced by a broad black veil covering the entire figure and revealing only the face.

The coldness of the gaze and the contrast between the whiteness of the flesh and the darkness of the veil, blending into the background like a mist, make this fantasy head a little more terrifying than seductive.

Eugénie Gadiffet-Caillard, known as Germaine Dawis (1857-1927), who was one of Henner's students, posed for this painting.

Artists

Jean-Jacques Henner

Materials and techniques

Oil on canvas

Origin and date

1903

Size

55.8 cm x 40.5 cm

Inventory number

JJHP 1927-2

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