Portrait of Hendrika Troussard-Maris, sister of the painter

In 1872 Matthijs Maris was living in Montmartre, in a Paris still recovering from a hard couple of years. The city had come through a long German siege the winter before, then the fighting of the Commune that spring, and Maris, loyal to France, had served in the National Guard during the war. His brother Jacob, who had drawn him to Paris, went home to Holland in 1871, leaving Matthijs there largely alone and short of money. He painted his sister plainly and up close, in the sober, realist manner he still kept then, before his figures softened into the grey haze he became known for. The sitter is his own sister Hendrika, who had married and taken the name Troussard, one of the few family faces he set down in his Paris years.