The theme of a woman seated beside a window has a long tradition in Belgian and Dutch painting, most notably represented by the interiors of Jan Vermeer. In this canvas, Morren recasts the motif in the language of Neo-Impressionism.

Morren transforms this silent realm crowded with furnishings and keepsakes into an intricate, colorful pattern of carefully applied dots. He even paints the paisley shawl in both shadow and bright light.

The twisted rods at the right are the drying racks of a stove. They add a strangely energetic note to the motionless scene.

By inheritance to the artist’s second wife, Orpha Buyssens, née Demets, [1911- ?].{1} Madame Dagieu-Sully, Paris.{2} (Stephen Higgons, Paris) by 1958.{3}(Hammer Galleries, New York) by 1963;{4} acquired by W.J. Holliday in 1964;{5} by bequest to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1979 (79.278).

{1}See Tony Calabrese, George Morren, 1868-1941: Monographie générale suivie du catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre, Antwerp, 2000, pp. 8, 11, 190 and cat no. 13.
{2} Ibid, see cat. no. 13.
{3}See the advertisement in Burlington Magazine, vol. 100 (November 1958), p. xxvi (ill.) for the Stephen Higgins (sic) gallery. According to the biographical details given in the on-line Collection Database of the British Museum, he was a collector-dealer whose full name was Stephen de Premorel-Higgons.
{4}See the undated catalogue, Hammer Galleries, Selection from Our Extensive collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings (cira 1963-64), n.p. (ill).
{5}As cited in Ellen Wardwell Lee, The Aura of Neo-Impressionism: The W.J. Holliday Collection, Indianapolis, 1983, pp. 55-57 (ill.).