• oil on canvas, 1932
• signed and dated 32 lower right recto
• canvas size 31½" x 25" (80 x 63.5 cm.)
• Provenance:
      Collection of Sir Edward James, England, acquired directly from the artist
      The Edward James Collection, Sotheby's, West Dean, June 5, 1986, lot 1613
      Collection of Roy Hay, Los Angeles, CA
      Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, NY
      Private Collection
  

The daughter of Grand Duke Paul of Russia (1860-1919), Natalie Paley was a celebrated fashion icon and muse. Her icy beauty captivated Tchelitchew who crowned her with garlands of anemones in this 1932 oil.

... a majority of the pictures painted during the latter part of 1932. To this period belong some of the outstanding works of his career, among them the....Chinese Song for which a fine preparatory study is here reproduced....It is unfortunate that due to the war none of these paintings is available for the present exhibition, for each illustrates in varying degree the complexity of color with which Tchelitchew now relieved the restricted palette of his earlier career. -- James Thrall Soby, Tchelitchew: Paintings, Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, NY, 1942, p.24