Sur la terrasse à Sèvres

By 1880 Marie Bracquemond had moved away from the polished manner of Ingres toward the loose, light-filled painting of Renoir and Monet, and this terrace scene is where that shift is clearest. She set it on the terrace of her own house at Sèvres, just outside Paris. The two women, one seen face-on and one in profile, were both posed by the same person, her sister Louise Quiveron. She was one of only a few women to show in the Impressionist exhibitions, and she took part in the one held that same year. Her husband, the printmaker Félix Bracquemond, had little sympathy for this new direction, and within about a decade she had largely given up painting.