Marguerite de Gas

Marguerite was the youngest of the de Gas sisters, eight years younger than Edgar, and she is said to have been his favourite model. He drew her from the time of her first communion, in 1854, and here she is somewhere between 16 and 18. She stands in a plain grey dress with a white cap and collar, one hand on the back of a chair, the other on her hip. The face is worked with care, while the dress is laid in with quick strokes and the curtain behind her is a loose wash of warm brown. In 1865 she married the architect Henri Fevre, and in 1889 she left France with her family for Buenos Aires, where she died in 1895. Her son Henri kept this portrait in Nice until the French national museums bought it in 1931.