Duncan Grant’s remarkable painting Woman at a Window, dating from circa1912 marks a radical departure in the artist's work principally due to his experience of Post Impressionism and the progressive art being produced in Paris in the first decade of the new century. From a wide range of influences at the time, the work of Cezanne and Matisse, whose studios Grant visited in 1911 shine bright. His use of a Pointillist technique, using large touches of paint in an almost mosaic like way, contrast with a smoother application in the depiction of the figure, giving an animation to the composition.

In 1911, Grant visited Paris armed with a letter of introduction to Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo. Grant later said ‘We saw a good deal of them at the time. I think I had known them in Paris before that and I used to go to Gertude’s Thursday evenings’. It has been noted that the figure in ‘Woman in the Window’ shows a marked resemblance to Gertrude Stein and it is indeed likely that Grant and Stein may have seen each other when both were in Italy later in 1911, Stein visiting Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia in Florence.

The painting was exhibited in the groundbreaking show at the Tate Gallery in 1999, ‘The Art of Bloomsbury’ and was hung alongside Grant’s other masterpiece from the same date ‘The Queen of Sheba’ in the Tate, collection.