Sita and Sarita c. 1921

Editor: Here we have Cecilia Beaux’s *Sita and Sarita*, completed around 1921, using oil paint on canvas. I'm immediately drawn to the cool color palette and soft, diffused light, but also how the black cat adds this playful yet slightly mysterious element to an otherwise very proper portrait. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: Playful, mysterious...yes, perfectly observed! For me, Beaux conjures something deeper, something bordering on the allegorical, where Sita isn't merely holding Sarita – more like *bearing* her, don't you think? The portrait vibrates with the intimate, yet slightly aloof bond between woman and feline familiar. Consider the era; Beaux was straddling societal shifts, navigating old world charm alongside a brazenly modern outlook, somewhat reflected in the quiet gaze of the subject here, don't you think? Editor: Absolutely! I didn’t quite make that connection. Her gaze *is* quite captivating and… self-possessed. I’m used to seeing those impressionistic brushstrokes create fleeting, ephemeral effects. Here, though, there’s something so solid about the woman’s presence. Curator: Precisely! The soft brushwork belies an intensely rigorous composition and attention to detail. Beaux understood light and form. Look at the rendering of the white dress. Almost sculptural, no? It becomes not just fabric, but character, circumstance, personality! A fascinating marriage of seeming opposites, softness and steel! She challenges expectations; her figures transcend simple likeness and breathe a strange sort of… well, immortal life. Editor: I love that phrase, “immortal life”! I see it now, the balance she strikes. I’ll never look at a Cecilia Beaux portrait the same way. Curator: Art should change us! Perhaps we ought to thank Sita *and* Sarita for letting us see the world through their unique looking-glass.