In the early 1930s, Foujita travelled to South America with Madeleine Lequeux (his model and partner, also known as Mady), and arrived in Argentina in 1932, where they spent a brief five months. It was in Buenos Aires that Foujita received one of his greatest welcome ever by adoring art fans. He greeted an overwhelming sixty thousand visitors to his exhibition at the time, and sold all his works. In his travel accounts, Foujita also noted of Buenos Aires’ similarity to Paris in its high culture and arts. The present work, Portrait de Femme, was painted in Buenos Aires during this successful and brief trip, and depicts Maria Carolina Carcano Zumaran, the wife of Martinez de Hoz Acevedo, the Minister of Economy in Buenos Aires at the time. Rendered in Foujita’s signature ‘blancheur de lait’, a pearlescent translucent white, the seated figure’s dress and pearls take on an oneiric quality, injecting it with a sense of mystery and history.