The one Carried By Butterflies
Description
A vertical work on a textured support, photographed alone against a pale backing that shows as a narrow white margin on all four sides.
A single standing figure occupies the central axis, shown full length from head to bare feet, the head at roughly the upper third and the feet near the lower third, leaving a broad expanse of open ground below. The head is tilted downward, the features rendered softly and partly dissolved into deep purple-black shadow. The torso is bare, modeled with pronounced linear ribbing, the arms hanging straight at the sides with hands open near the hips. A dark navy-black garment covers the hips and upper thighs. Two fine pale white lines rise from near each shoulder and extend diagonally upward and outward, each terminating at a butterfly: one at the upper left, smaller and lower, one at upper center-right, larger and higher. Both are drawn with detailed wing patterning in pale yellow, cream, and grey outline.
The upper two-thirds of the ground is mottled rust, terracotta, brick red, mauve, and brown, with darker sepia and near-black blooms along the upper edge and left side. The lower third shifts to muted teal, slate blue, grey-green, and lavender, with a diffuse purple-blue passage beneath and to the right of the feet. The figure's skin is modeled in ochre, orange, pink, mauve, and violet.
Broad pooled wash carries the ground, with visible backruns, granulation, hard-edged tide lines, and speckled dark sedimentation. The grain of the support reads through the wash in places. The figure is built up in finer dry media over the wash, with contour lines along the arms, legs, and torso. The butterflies and the two rising threads are rendered in thin opaque white and fine linear drawing, sitting on top of the washed ground. No legible signature or inscription is visible.
Preservation Notes
PROVISIONAL. All observations below are from visual inspection of a digital image. No physical examination has been carried out. DIMENSIONS, MISSING ENTIRELY The dimensions field is empty on this record. Height, width, and unit are all unset. This is the only work in this collection with no dimensions recorded at all. Not inferred. Requires measurement or a statement from the artist. MEDIUM Recorded as "mixed media on canvas". Visual inspection suggests otherwise, and the discrepancy matters. The ground shows broad pooled wash with backruns, granulation, hard-edged tide lines, and speckled sedimentation, all characteristic of aqueous media on an absorbent sheet rather than on primed canvas. The grain reading through the wash is fine and even. The figure appears built in dry media over the wash, with opaque white linework on top. If this work is on paper rather than canvas, its storage, handling, and framing requirements are entirely different, and the current record would send a handler in the wrong direction. Flagged for confirmation rather than corrected, since the medium field already holds a value. CONDITION No tears, creases, foxing, or surface losses apparent in the photographed field. The sheet shows slightly irregular, softly feathered edges where the wash meets the margin, and subtle tonal variation near the edges suggesting minor cockling or undulation of the support, which would be consistent with aqueous media on an unrestrained sheet. Not diagnostic from a frontal photograph. If the dry media passages are unfixed pastel or soft pencil, they are at risk of smudging and offsetting and should not be stored in contact with another surface. SIGNATURE No legible signature or inscription visible. A small dark mark appears near the lower right corner but is not legible at this resolution and has not been interpreted. SOURCE FILE 3838 x 5508 px, the highest-resolution capture in this collection. Aspect ratio only. Physical dimensions not derivable from the file. Documentation would still benefit from raking light, visible sheet edges, a verso image, and a scale reference.
