Two Gentlemen and a Lady

In this sketch in graphite worked over in ink and pale blue and green washes, a well-dressed woman on the arm of a bourgeois man receives the attention of another on the right. At the center of the composition, she holds open a fan, which appears intended to mediate the advances of the leering suitor. The faint indications of figures in the background make clear that the trio are part of a crowd, possibly at a ball or the intermission of an opera. Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire heralded the graphic artist Guys as the "painter of modern life" and appreciated his attention to "women decked out with all the artifices and embellishments of fashion." A key embellishment, as shown here, was the fan.