Portrait of the Marquis d'Afflito

A young man reclines against a backdrop of jagged green foliage, dressed in a deep blue suit that seems carved from stone rather than stitched from fabric. This is Tamara de Lempicka's Portrait of the Marquis d'Afflitto, painted in 1925 during the height of the Art Deco era. Lempicka gave her subject the same sleek, sculptural treatment she brought to all her portraits, turning folds of cloth into smooth planes and sharp angles. The result is a man who looks less like flesh and blood and more like a polished machine, which fit perfectly with the glamorous, industrial mood of the 1920s.

Lempicka was a Polish artist who built her reputation painting the wealthy and fashionable of Paris, and she knew exactly how to make her sitters look expensive and modern. The Marquis d'Afflitto was part of her social circle, and rumor has long linked the two romantically, though the details remain fuzzy. The bow tie, the slicked hair, and the slightly aloof expression all speak to a certain type of elegant young man of the period. The leaves behind him, chopped into cube-like shapes, echo the Cubist ideas that were in the air at the time, reworked here into something cooler and more decorative.