Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London
Ac🎀quired directly from the above by the present owner in 2003

 “With Pastel you don’t have the brush between you and the surface.  Your hand is making the picture. It’s almost like being a sculptor. You are making the person. It’s very tactile.  And lovely because it’s very difficult, learning what colours to use together to make shadows and so on… it’s wonderful to do, to rub your hand over.” (Paula Rego cited in John McEwan, Paula Rego, 2^nd edition, 1997, p. 215)

The woman in the present composition slumbers against the stark white wall, a blue glow surrounds her, and there is a flower in her hair that is suggestive of a halo.  These details contrast with her expression articulated in the heavy dark lines of her face and slumped pose. She embodies a mixture of female types, Princess, Virgin, mother and friend that the viewer is left to ponder. As with most of her finest works, Rego here manages to cast her female subject with a range of subtle ambigu🦂ities and, formally isolated against a neutral background, she becomes a beacon for the marriage of classic and contemporary femininity.