This painting shows the room at 87 rue du Cherche-Midi whereGwenJohnlived from 1907 to 1909. The wicker chair was included in several works painted in this period: one of them , a self -portrait entitled Girl Reading at the Window (Museum of Modern Art, New York), shows the artist with her foot perched on it, reading a book.This continual return to a single familiar object reflects her practice if painting in series. A Corner of the artist’s Room in Paris can be compared to Nabi interiors, but the feeling of detached intensity which is imparted to this single domestic object make the picture more closely related to the Slade tradition of interior painting. The fluid handling of the paint, with its English associations, is characteristic of Slade work in the 1890s and early 1900s, and can be traced back to Whistler.GwenJohn’s contact with Whistler in Paris was also important , since she acquired from him the basis for a precise and scientific approach: ‘She used to prepare the canvases according to a recipe of her own and invented a system of numbering her colour mixtuersÉ’ (London, A. Matthiesen Ltd,GwenJohnMemorial Exhibition, introduction by AugustusJohn1946, p. 3)