Alice Pike Barney, born Cincinnati, OH - The Spanish Shawl - ca. 1908 - T-Shirt

A standing woman in a dark, flower-patterned shawl glances upward beside a gilt-framed mirror that reflects her figure and a seated musician, all rendered in soft pastel tones.

Visual Elements & Composition

The woman occupies the right side of the vertical composition, one hand at her side and the other laid across her waist. Her dark gown and heavy shawl dominate the figure, the shawl patterned with large red roses and smaller blue and white blossoms, its fringed edges falling below her arms. On the left, a gilt rectangular mirror doubles her image in a darker tone and, lower down, shows a seated man playing a stringed instrument. The background is a warm ochre and olive field, and the surfaces are built from loose, blended pastel strokes in near black, ochre gold, dark teal, crimson and pale cream.

Meaning & Symbolism

The mirror splits the scene in two, presenting the sitter both as a figure to be admired and as part of a wider performance with the musician. Her upward, half-smiling glance and the floral shawl, a garment tied to Spanish dress, suggest song, dance or private reverie rather than a formal sitting. The work was made by Alice Pike Barney (1857 to 1931), born in Cincinnati, an American painter of portraits and figure studies who was a central figure in Washington, D.C. artistic life. This pastel reflects her interest in mood, reflection and the decorative pattern of dress, along with the loose, atmospheric handling of her early twentieth-century figurative work.

Designed for the Wearer

A tee carries this image across the chest, where the whole composition reads at once: the upright figure, the mirror's gilt frame and the swirl of the shawl. The reflection and the upward glance face outward from the body, so the piece is best seen from a distance, when the pastel strokes blend and the scene of the woman and her musician comes together.