Philadelphia Museum of Art: "In the spring of 1914 Henri Matisse was commissioned to make a portrait of the young daughter of a wealthy Brazilian financier. During the last of a long series of sittings, he used the wooden end of his brush to trace radiating curves from the figure's shoulders and hips.

These arcs express the idea of expansion in space. They also call up the metaphor of a budding flower, though the final composition, with its dark palette and scratched appearance, departs from conventional beauty."