Lady With a Bowl of Violets

Close up of Lady With a Bowl of Violets

A young woman sits on a chair with her hair in a loose bun, wearing a white lace-trim gown. Her body turns slightly right towards a fireplace, its orange glow reflected on her hair and torso. The room is light and clean and a dark bowl overflowing with violets sits on the mantle.
A young woman sits on a chair with her hair in a loose bun, wearing a white lace-trim gown. Her body turns slightly right towards a fireplace, its orange glow reflected on her hair and torso. The room is light and clean and a dark bowl overflowing with violets sits on the mantle.
Lilla Cabot Perry, Lady With a Bowl of Violets, ca. 1910; Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 30 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

In Lady with a Bowl of Violets, Lilla Cabot Perry demonstrated her love of light-infused Impressionist colors and bravura brushwork.

Painted after the Perry family returned from Tokyo, this composition features a Japanese woodblock print and simple floral arrangement behind the sitter’s head. The artist dramatically cropped both the print and flowers in a manner reminiscent of traditional Japanese art. Such art also inspired the curious and daring compositional emptiness of the left side of the picture.

Perry used the loose, painterly brushstrokes favored by Impressionists. With just a few broad strokes of paint, she conveyed the texture of the young woman’s skin and the heavy white lace trim on her gown. Vibrant orange highlights derive from the reflected light of the hearth.

Artwork Details

  • Artist

    Lilla Cabot Perry

  • Title

    Lady With a Bowl of Violets

  • Date

    ca. 1910

  • Medium

    Oil on canvas

  • Dimensions

    40 1/4 x 30 in.

  • Donor Credit

    Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

  • Photo Credit

    Lee Stalsworth

  • On Display

    No

The Artist, Lilla Cabot Perry

Although she had no formal art training until age 36, Lilla Cabot Perry became a professional painter and a devotee of French Impressionism with a formidable body of work.
Black-and-white interior photograph of a light-skinned adult woman in profile with dark hair in a bun and a light-color dress. She stands in front of an easel and holds a palatte and brushes in her left hand. She rests her right hand on a painting of a light-skinned young girl.