Madame Monet wearing a kimono

La japonesa, known in English as Madame Monet wearing a kimono, is an 1876 oil on canvas by Claude Monet. It shows his wife, Camille Doncieux, standing on a tatami mat in a padded red kimono decorated with the figure of a famous Japanese actor. Before her hangs a wall of uchiwa fans. Although the costume is Japanese, Camille wears a blonde wig over her dark hair, a detail that makes plain the painting is a European performance of Japanese style rather than a faithful view of Japan. Her body turns in profile while her face looks out at the viewer, a pose probably inspired by the Japanese dance prints that were popular in Europe at the time.

Monet paid particular attention to the embroidery on the kimono, which depicts a samurai with a stern expression and a firm grip on his sword. Beside that austere male figure, Camille smiles and holds an folding fan painted in the colours of the French flag. Most of the fans on the wall show hazy, impressionist landscapes, but one shows a Japanese woman in a kimono whose face tilts toward Camille with an almost astonished look, as if the picture were commenting on its own artifice.

The work grew out of financial pressure. In the mid-1870s Monet was struggling after his income from the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel became less reliable and after the costs of moving house. Japonisme was fashionable in France, and he hoped the painting would sell well when he showed it at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Some scholars suggest he also wanted to compete with Manet's The Lady with the Fans, though there is no firm evidence he had seen that painting in person.

The critical response was divided. Some writers praised its bold use of colour, but many found it strange and sexually suggestive. Monet seems to have withdrawn it before the exhibition closed. A report claimed it had been bought by an anonymous collector for a very high price, yet historians question that figure and have offered several explanations. Today the painting is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it remains a key example of japonisme in French painting and of the ambiguous way Impressionism engaged with Japanese culture.

Painter

Claude Monet

Date

1876

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

232 × 142 cm

Museum

Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston

Movement

Impressionism, Japonisme

Genre

portrait

Depicts

wig, hand fan, standing, blond hair, Camille Doncieux, painting, wall, woman

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