An elegant woman

One of two paintings by Corcos bearing the same title and date — An Elegant Woman, 1887 — this work illustrates both his prolific output of fashionable female subjects and the practical reality that such general titles were assigned to undifferentiated portrait-like images of society women. Painted in 1887, within Corcos's most commercially energetic decade, it exemplifies the format that made his reputation: a carefully dressed woman of evident bourgeois or aristocratic standing, presented with psychological attentiveness and technical precision. The 1887 date places it two years before his celebrated Double Portrait and nine years before Dreams, situating it within the core of his mature productive life.

Corcos's standard approach to the elegant female subject is fully deployed here: precise rendering of fashionable dress and accessories, careful facial modelling with warm light and cool shadow transitions, and a background that provides atmospheric support without compositional competition. The color palette reflects late 1880s fashion — likely featuring the deeper, richer tones of the pre-Art Nouveau decade.