Ivana Marchegay, Portrait De Geisha, Gouache, Tokyo, 1937

Artist painter and illustrator, Ivana Marchegay belongs to the school of travelling painters, like Alix Aimé or Léa Lafugie.
Her biographical details are few. Daughter of an agricultural agronomist and landowner in Tunisia, she married Albert, president of the Portland cement company in Indochina.

Her name is found in the catalog of the 1938 Salon held at the Grand Palais of Paris, where she exhibited two works, including Huttes tonkino . Other works, mainly gouaches,appeared on the art market, such as a Pagodai n Saigon, a Chinese Temple or a Tonkese dancer.

Ivana Marchegay has also distinguished herself as an illustrator for numerous books: Alicein Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Librairie Gedalge, 1950), Le Grand Pélican by Alice Decaen (Librairie Gedalge, 1950), Nouveaux contes d'Andersen,(Librairie Geldage, 1950) and Contes from the old garden by Scarlett (Editions de Marly).

Our model, standing in profile, is dressed in traditional garb, holding a long-necked plucked lute called a shamisen. Her blue-striped silk kimono is enameled with plant motifs and fastened with a wide, traditional belt floral motifs and worn as a drum knot.

With long sleeves and finished with a gracefully flowing train to the ground, the kimono elegantly reveals its powdered white neck. Likewise, her face is adorned with rice powder while her cheeks are embellished with delicate touches of pink. Her eyebrows and eye rims, outlined in charcoal contrast with the bright red of her lips.

With her hair in an elaborate chignon, our geisha's eyes are squinty and severe look. Perhaps the consequence of several nights in a row spent sleeping on a takamakura, a neckrest that holds the head above the bed so as not to damage her hairstyle, which is designed to last at least a week. Unless his sulky expression can be explained by the weight of the entire outfit, which can reach 20 kg, the kimono being made of heavy fabric.

This large-scale gouache executed in 1937 in Tokyo forever fixes the refined, authentic image of a by gone era when tradition, exacting standards and sophistication ruled the hushed world of Japanese society.