This painting is now widely known as a masterpiece from Fujishima Takeji’s period in Rome, but it was only shown at the very end of his life. Its canvas had been tacked to the back of the stairs to the second floor, deep in Fujishima’s studio. The story is that when Fujishima was on his sickbed, his student, Kobori Shiro, acted for him, retrieving the canvas, mounting it, and applying varnish, and bringing the painting back to life, to Fujishima’s great delight. Why did he not show it earlier? We can imagine a special relationship between himself and the model or many other reasons, but the answer remains unknown.
The woman gazes meaningfully, directly at us. Highlighting the bridge of her nose and her cheeks draws out the model’s beauty, and the shading, using blue effectively, gives the picture plane a vibrant glow and depth. Her white veil and black fan are rendered boldly in unhesitatingly powerful brushstrokes. The exquisite combination of delicate use of color and boldly dynamic brushwork captures the viewer’s heart. The model’s veil and fan call to mind the taste for things Spanish that spread throughout nineteenth century Europe. Having experienced the taste of that period in Paris, through the work of Édouard Manet and others, Fujishima then discovered it again in Rome. Having sworn to keep this painting at his side and never part with it, Fujishima entrusted it to a trusted collector, Ishibashi Shojiro, a year before he died.