La Japonaise (painting)
La Japonaise is a 1876 painting by Claude Monet, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The full-length portrait depicts a European woman in a kimono standing in front of a wall covered in Japanese fans.
Paintings of European women in Japanese costume had been popular in France since the 1860s, and Monet's contribution to the genre may have been motivated by a desire to generate income and publicity at a time when he was in need of money. Monet's wife, Camille, modeled for the portrait, wearing a blonde wig and staring out at the viewer with an expression that period-critics saw as sexually suggestive.
