Rooms go incoherent quietly. A frame is added in March, another in May, and by summer the woman on the north wall is a stranger to the woman by the door. The cause is rarely the rendering; it is the briefing. She was described from memory at every job, and memory re-hangs the picture a little differently each time it is asked. “Chestnut hair in a low chignon” in frame one becomes “elegant dark hair” by frame four, and the audience watches a replacement take her place. The repair is clerical: write her once, on a gallery ledger entry you paste rather than retype.
Five fixed lines, always in order
Age — a number, and at this atelier a mature one. Hair — colour, length and one habitual style. Build — two or three words, no more. Face — one or two details that survive any light. Signature — the one object or mark that identifies her at a glance.
The entry stays open on the desk
Every bench works with the ledger in sight, and every dispute between frames is settled by reading the entry aloud. It is a small courtesy with a large effect: nobody — human or model — improvises a character who has already been written down.