Luisa Casati

On this painting, Kees van Dongen used his tested technique of elongated figures, large eyes and strange vibrant yet mystical colours. As he was famous for portraying rich and fashionable ladies and society hostesses, he commented one time ‘The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished.‘ Look on the composition, how Luisa was placed on the far left instead of the usual central position common for portraits, and find it very interesting how she turned her back on the viewers, intriguing them even more. Her figure is elongated, her hands are thin, her waist is tiny, and that greenish skin colour, that sickly absinthe shade of green. Her pearl necklace, red high-heel shoes and thin flimsy shawl are here only to round off her mystical, sensuous and dreamy figure with all its decadency and avant-garde mood which is so appealing even today. Luisa Casati was an eccentric Italian heiress, muse, and patroness of the arts in early 20th-century Europe. As the concept of dandy was expanded to include women, the marchesa Casati fitted the utmost female example by saying: "I want to be a living work of art". We have previously shown her portrait created by G. Boldini - you can see it in the DailyArt archive