Who comes?

Who comes? is one of a series of works called Days and Nights in August, painted by Rupert Bunny between 1907 and 1911. They evoke a mood of intimacy and luxurious leisure; of perfume, poetry, and distant music. Bunny’s chief model, posing for both figures in this painting, was his wife Jeanne. She was "a beautiful French woman and her husband delighted to paint her in the long, flounced and flowing dresses of the period. Once he said, with faint distaste: 'When short skirts came in I no longer wanted to paint women'."

The drapery has been painted in a way that has little relation to the bodies beneath. One reviewer in 1911 explained Bunny’s preference for loose drapery as a way of capturing or complementing the indefiniteness of nature, "leaving forms and outlines in a state of indecision and flux." In contrast to the geometry of the striped blind, Bunny’s rendering of filmy cloth breaks the shapes so that the attention goes not to outlines and large areas but to surfaces and small accents.

P.S. French women are known for their style and chic. It's nothing new; get to know about French elegance in the 18th century here!