Richard Miller began studying art in his hometown of St. Louis, but in 1898, like many American artists of the late nineteenth century, he sought the rigors and prestige of study in Paris. Unlike most of his compatriots abroad, however, he remained in France for twenty years, finally departing for Pasadena, California, at the outbreak of the First World War. His work is characterized by a sentimental and decorative impressionism that he carried into the 1930s.

     Reflections is typical of the fin-de-siecle paintings of beautiful women daydreaming within elegant domestic interiors. It bears remarkable resemblance to a contemporary work by Robert Reid, The Violet Kimono . In both paintings a young woman lounges at her dressing table attentive to flowers in a vase, her face reflected in her mirror.

     Reflections is very characteristic of Miller's style. Typical of his pictorial devices is the backlighting of bright sunlight entering in through the window. The work also reveals Miller's tendency for geometric linearity, as shown in the lines of the mirror, table, window shades, and chair rungs. The woman's form is more strongly delineated and less fragmented than many of those by his fellow impressionists. His palette is also brighter and here shows his affnity for greens and purples.

     The title is vague. Does it indicate the woman's contemplative posture and/or the reflective nature of the mirror? Her seeming listlessness suggests the latter. She is compressed into a pictorial space that creates a sense of confnement and limitation. The lack of extraneous space also heightens her potential for objectification. With eyes downcast and slumped in a state of inertia, she reminds us of the model in Thomas Dewing's The Spinner . The fact that the woman in Reflections neither confronts the viewer with her gaze nor contemplates herself in the mirror robs her of self-identity; she remains offered for our sight and not her own.

     Unlike the modest old-fashioned dress of Dewing's model, Miller's subject is sensuously dressed in a loose-fitting robe that has fallen off one shoulder. The kimonolike robe with its bright colors was a favorite decorative device used by Whistler and other artists caught in the craze of orientalism in the later nineteenth century. Of much older pictorial tradition is the inclusion in a female portrait of the mirror and flowers, connotations of vanity and femininity.