La femme en bleu

Painted in 1928 and held by the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, 'La femme en bleu' represents Marquet's interior figure work, a quieter counterpart to his celebrated harbour panoramas. By the late 1920s Marquet was dividing his time between Paris, Algiers, and occasional journeys elsewhere in Europe, and his studio interiors from this period show a sustained interest in the relationship between a solitary figure and the domestic space around her. The title announces colour as subject: the woman's blue dress or garment dominates the chromatic field and creates a visual rhyme with the windows or surfaces behind her. Marquet's figure paintings share with his landscapes a preference for calm, unhurried presences — there is never drama or narrative urgency, only a quality of attentive stillness. His approach to the female figure in interiors owes something to Bonnard and Vuillard, though Marquet's palette is consistently cooler and his drawing more abbreviated.

Oil paint is applied with characteristic economy: the figure's blue garment is broadly stated with minimal internal modelling, and the surrounding interior is treated as a series of soft tonal planes. The composition probably relies on a window as a light source that silhouettes or illuminates the figure.