Oil on canvas, 44.5×53.5 cm
Datable circa 1905-1915
Manciano, private collection
Like the preceding painting, this one too seems to be preparatory for a larger picture, which we do not know and may never have been painted. In a kitchen crowded with copper pitchers and pots, a carefully groomed young woman sits in a pose of discouraged abandonment, her head leaning on and supported by her right arm. In the centre of the scene a kitchen towel of dazzling white pierces the soft shadows with peremptory force and seems almost to be a white flag of surrender raised by the woman who is perceptibly unhappy, even though we cannot know the reason or her personal story.