Invitation

Two women in white blouses stand in the foreground with raised hands, as though beckoning or mid-gesture, while two more women in matching poses appear smaller beside a fountain in the garden behind them. Statues line paths among trimmed trees, jets of water rise around the pool, and an open, cage-like frame overhead holds a yellow and a blue parrot with small birds around it. Roses, lilies, orange fruit and hanging bunches of grapes fill the borders, with a patterned blue drape swagged across the top of the scene.

The palette is bright and saturated - white linen, pink and cream roses, deep blue drapery and green foliage - built up with fine, even detail across every element from petals to feathers. Repeating the two women's poses in miniature behind the main pair flattens the sense of real space into a symbolic, stage-like arrangement, and the ornamental framing of flowers and drapery gives the whole a decorative, theatrical dreaminess.