Artist: Frances Hodgkins (1869—1947)
Date: c1903–1905
Media: watercolour on board
Dimensions: 501 × 434 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–17
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara
Date: c1903–1905
Media: watercolour on board
Dimensions: 501 × 434 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–17
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara
Maori Girl Seated was probably painted at Rotorua which Frances Hodgkins visited on a sketching trip in June and July 1905. She used the composition of a girl seated on a canoe in a beach landscape that she had used in some of the paintings based on visits to and Moeraki in the late 1890s, but her treatment of the theme is different and shows the lessons learnt in Europe. Her broad washes of transparent blue, cream and brown create a soft atmosphere, blurring detail, rendering the girl’s features indistinct, and suggesting a melancholy, dream-like atmosphere that recalls European Symbolist paintings. The decorative tree branch overhead adds a Japanese element.