Venetian Maidservant

In March 1903 Bernard left Cairo for Venice, taking two of his children and Andrée Fort, the Frenchwoman he was then living with. The Egyptian household he had kept for nearly ten years was coming apart. That October he travelled back to Cairo to settle the separation from his wife, and afterwards brought the children to France. This canvas belongs to the Venice months in between, and it is a substantial piece of work for such an unsettled year, a metre high. The subject is a servant rather than a view of the city, an indoor subject at a time when the city itself was only a stop. He was in Venice about seven months.