Self-portrait (recto); Study for a self-portrait (verso)
Marie Bracquemond French
Not on view
This sheet contains two studies for Bracquemond’s only major self-portrait painting (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen): on one side, a faint graphite sketch, and on the other a more finished version, accentuated with ink wash and white highlights. She presents herself in a direct, frontal view with an intent and serious gaze. 1870—the year in which she executed this work—was a personally pivotal one for the artist, in which she gave birth to her only child, Pierre. She had married the painter-printmaker Félix Bracquemond the previous year, after meeting him in the galleries of the Louvre. Initially supportive of her artistic pursuits, he eventually discouraged her to the extent that she abandoned her professional life as an artist in the 1890s.
