French artist Maurice Denis painted Portrait of Marthe, his wife, in 1893, the year of their marriage. Her features are delicately and accurately drawn and reveal a certain shyness. In contrast with the accuracy of the portrayal of his wife, Denis offers a highly stylized and almost eerily beautiful background illuminated by moonlight, with simplified forms of clouds and trees. The background is seemingly clothed in the grace that reflects that of his sitter.
Maurice Denis’s Portrait of Marthe is in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia.