Chá da Tarde

This is the painter's half-sister, Louise, reading in the garden of the family home at Sèvres, just outside Paris, in 1880. That year Marie Bracquemond was showing with the Impressionists for the second time, one of only a handful of women in the group, painting the ordinary, intelligent life of the women around her rather than the cafés and boulevards her male colleagues favored. She had a real gift for painting outdoor light, and the garden here is full of it. Her husband, a well-known engraver, disliked the direction her work was taking and made his disapproval felt at home. Around 1890 she gave up painting almost entirely, and much of her work stayed unseen in the family's house for years.