Jeanne Pissarro Called Minette Holding a Fan

The fan in this child's hands was, in 1873, a piece of the newest Paris fashion. Japan had reopened to foreign trade only a few years earlier, and its prints, lacquer and fans were reaching French studios. Pissarro was among the painters quietly taking them in. The girl is his daughter Jeanne, called Minette from her first days, the eldest of his children to survive infancy, and he painted her again and again. She was a frail child, cared for by Paul Gachet, the doctor of nearby Auvers who years later would sit for van Gogh. The soft, hesitant handling and muted colour give the small picture its closeness. By the spring of 1874 Minette was dead at nine, in Pontoise where the family lived, and her death fell within days of the first Impressionist exhibition opening in Paris, where her father had five paintings on the walls.