The Red Kerchief

The woman in the red kerchief is Camille Doncieux - Claude Monet's muse and wife. The two met in the late winter or early spring of 1864-1865. Unfortunately, much information about their early life together, as well as Doncieux's family background, was lost when Monet destroyed her correspondence and personal mementoes after her death in 1879, at the insistence of his second wife, Alice Hoschedé Monet. What is known is that Doncieux began to model for Monet when she was a teenaged girl and he was a young painter who was just beginning to discover the dimensions of his talent. 

Monet has barely delineated Camille's face: her eyes and mouth are little more than single daubs with his brush. She appears to have been caught in movement. Is she arriving or leaving?

We present today's painting thanks to the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

P.S. Here's another portrait of Camille, where she seats serenely beneath a canopy of lilacs during springtime.