L・L嬢の肖像

James Tissot showed this at the Paris Salon of 1864, the year he decided, in his own words, to enter his own century and paint modern life. The whole picture turns on one red bolero jacket, borrowed from a zouave soldier's uniform, its little pompoms marching along the edge, set against a dull green room. Critics loved the small true details, the used books and loose papers on her table, a postcard tucked into the mirror behind her. And the sitter herself has never been identified. She is known only as Miss L. L., a young Parisian who looks back at us, entirely self-possessed, and has kept her name to herself for more than 160 years.