Madge Tennent weds the serene to the mesmeric in this depiction of a Hawaiian woman on the brink of marital bliss, her head crowned with a lei po’o and her torso draped with ceremonial carnations. The painting represents a departure from the brilliant hues and pronounced contours of works such as Local Color into more subdued and ethereal compositions. Behind an iridescent veil, complementary oils fuse into one of Tennent’s characteristically dynamic matriarchs, blending the cobalt outline of her form with her nebulous background in a nod to Da Vinci’s sfumato technique.

In 1935, Hawaiian Bride traveled with five other major paintings — among them Hawaiians Hanging Holoku, Lei Queen Fantasia, and Two Lei Sellers — to one-woman shows in Paris, London, Cairo, and New York. Tennent, who considered this “one of the few paintings with which I was almost satisfied,” sold it to an enamored modern art enthusiast following her second major exhibition in England (1937). The "Bride" hung in this collector’s London mansion alongside works by Picasso, Matisse, and Bonnard until his death in 1954, when the canvas was returned to Madge Tennent per the terms of his will. The rest of his collection was sent to auction at Christie’s.