The Bridesmaid is the woman a wedding places closest to the vow and gives no part in it. This is the sketch beneath the painting: the first time she surfaceds, before the black ground, before the cream of the gele, before the oil closed over her. In the painting she is crying. Here she is not. This represents the first version of the painting that shook the world, seen by millions. The face is drawn level and finished before anything around it, while the gele is still open contour and the beads are still circles, so the only resolved thing in the picture is the one thing that will later break. One of one, released one year on: the only version of her that is not yet crying.
