Zittende vrouw met platte hoed, steunend op haar linkerhand 1874 - 1945

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this watercolour painting of a seated woman, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It’s all about soft washes and delicate, tentative marks, a real sense of the artist feeling their way through the image. Look at the way the colors bleed and blend, especially around the edges of the figure. There’s a kind of hazy, dreamlike quality to it, like a memory fading at the edges. The paint is really thin, almost translucent in places, and the paper peeks through, which gives it this lovely, luminous quality. Then, BAM! There is this splash of intense red at her waist – what's going on there? Is it a flower, a stain, or maybe a wound? The whole thing feels so unresolved, like a sketch or a study. It reminds me of some of Vuillard's more intimate paintings, or even some of Whistler’s tonalist works. It's like Cachet is inviting us to participate in the process of seeing, rather than presenting us with a finished statement.