Alexina Legoux

The Louvre's full title for this portrait reads almost like an entry in a shop's staff book. Alexina Legoux, employed by Madame Sennegon, milliner, the artist's sister. Corot came from the Paris fashion trade. His mother had kept a milliner's shop, and his sister Annette-Octavie, married to Laurent-Denis Sennegon, worked in the same business. Alexina was one of her employees, and Corot painted her in 1829 or 1830. She sits out of doors against a low green hill and a grey sky, her hair pinned up high, in a dark blue dress with full sleeves, a white collar tied with a black ribbon and a red shawl slipping off behind her. The picture came to the Louvre in 1906 as part of the gift of the collector Étienne Moreau-Nélaton.