This study presents the theme of the image and the representation of the Brazilian woman. It was investigated how the notion of modern woman, present in the 20s and 30s, was designed on the printed media illustrated in photographic images, charges, illustrations and caricatures. This notion shared aesthetic characteristics that involved the comprehension of modernity. The survey of recurrent basic characteristics on the notions of modernity started with Baudelaire`s conception following T.J. Clark observations and joined Marshall Berman`s study. The ephemeral and the ambiguity were characteristics shaped in images that represented the modern woman. Many of the written and visual discourses associated the feminine to modernity, and in special, to the modernization of the Rio de Janeiro city. But, the new woman was also associated to another aspect that characterized the new time- the consumption, represented by the advertisings of the time. The symbolic and imaginary construction of the modern woman was multifaceted and identified by three main dimensions that integrated the feminine identity: the ephemeral, the apparent and the imagined. The discourses about beauty and fashion were associated with these three dimensions and made clear the ambiguous and ephemeral character of the new woman. The morphologic analysis of the feminine representation observed imaginary and symbolic models, where the melindrosa was accentuated as the feminine form of modernity. The slim model of the short haired woman was represented with aspects of androgyny and represented, in some cases, mannerist characteristics, resulted form the new aesthetics, and the new perceptions of the time and the woman.