Portrait of an Italian Lady

Fujishima finally was able to travel to Europe in 1906 at the age of 38. After studying in Paris he then we t to Italy where he studied with the portrait-specialist, Carolus-Duran, a member of the French Academy and then the head of the French Academy in Rome. This work is thought to have been painted during Fujishima's stay in Rome and minimizes the literary lyricism seen in his images of women prior to his European sojourn. Here the artist focuses on a search for firm formal modeling. Fujishima has used his limited palette to provide a precise rendering of his model's features, an approach indicative of his thorough understanding of the Academic methods of figural depiction. Fujishima's richly decorative paintings created from his materials made him one of the leaders of Japan's pre-war western-style painting circles. This work is an important tool in our understanding of his figural methods as evinced during his stay in Europe.