Adulthood n.º 7

Context: November 1907. In barely six weeks Hilma paints The Ten Largest, canvases over three metres tall on the cycle of human life. This earring recreates the seventh in the series, where two large yellow forms marked with the Roman numerals I and II open out against a lilac ground like a flower at its fullest.

Interpretation: we shift our focus to the flower's upper edge, where the two forms graze one another and give rise to that great silhouette with a shared centre. For the artist, yellow is light and fullness. Not for nothing does she choose it to represent life at its height.

Technique: we add golden volume to that opening, with the pink drop spilling over, still waiting to take its shape. It is the same idea of fullness Hilma paints across three metres, now at human scale and ready to be worn.

Source: The Ten Largest, n.º 7, Adulthood, Group IV, 1907.