La robe Chinoise [The Chinese dress]
Hilda RIX NICHOLAS: artist
![La robe Chinoise [The Chinese dress]](https://collection.artgallery.wa.gov.au/records/images/xlarge/48/44ec7606ee0117e84ed64d6a6ed1cdb4d49ee2cc.jpg)
This portrait of the artist’s sister Elsie was painted in Paris in the heady days before the start of the First World War. Australian born and educated, Rix Nicholas had travelled overseas with her mother and sister in 1907 in order to continue her art studies. Elsie’s fancy dress reflects the late Edwardian period’s obsession with appearance, artifice, and disguise, as well as their fascination with non-European cultures. When war broke out the family was evacuated to England. Unfortunately Elsie contracted enteric fever on the crossing and died soon after their arrival, just one year after this portrait was made. (August 2018)
La robe Chinoise [The Chinese dress] was painted by Hilda Rix Nicholas
in Paris in the heady days before the start of the First World War. Australian born and educated, Rix Nicholas had travelled overseas with her mother and sister in 1907 in order to continue her art studies. The sitter for the painting was the artist’s sister, Elsie, and her depiction in fancy dress reflects the late Edwardian period’s obsession with appearance, artifice, and disguise, as well as their fascination with non-European cultures. When war broke out the family was evacuated to England. Unfortunately Elsie contracted enteric fever on the crossing and died soon after their arrival, just one year after this portrait was made.
La robe Chinoise [The Chinese dress] was painted by Hilda Rix Nicholas
in Paris in the heady days before the start of the First World War. Australian born and educated, Rix Nicholas had travelled overseas with her mother and sister in 1907 in order to continue her art studies. The sitter for the painting was the artist’s sister, Elsie, and her depiction in fancy dress reflects the late Edwardian period’s obsession with appearance, artifice, and disguise, as well as their fascination with non-European cultures. When war broke out the family was evacuated to England. Unfortunately Elsie contracted enteric fever on the crossing and died soon after their arrival, just one year after this portrait was made.
Title
La robe Chinoise [The Chinese dress]
Artist/Maker and role
Hilda RIX NICHOLAS: artist
Date
c 1913
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
139.5 x 80.0 cm (sight)
185.3 x 115 cm (framed)
185.3 x 115 cm (framed)
Credit line
Purchased through the Sir Claude Hotchin Art Foundation, The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 1994
© Hilda Rix Nicholas c1913
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
1994/0374