A woman in a loose patterned robe sits in a young garden under a painted paper parasol; a peacock walks across the grass in front of her, beside a low stone basin.

In the Garden, with a Peacock

undated · Photograph

She sits in a young, sparsely planted garden under a painted paper parasol, in a loose patterned robe, with a low stone basin in the foreground — and a peacock walking across the grass in front of her.

The bird is not a prop borrowed for the photograph. Peacocks and peacock feathers recur through her still lifes to the point that dealers still index her by them, and here is the live source: the Tempio Hermione was the kind of house where the emblem walked around the lawn. The parasol makes the other half of her self-presentation — the traveller of Yoshiwara and the Indian journey of 1905–06, at home in Lichtenrade.

Image: Photographer not credited · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons