Focus on this artwork and discuss the Background.
Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916) was a French artist who began painting in the 1850s.  Unlike many of her contemporaries, she came from a working-class background and was mostly self-taught. She was initially influenced by Romanticism which was in vogue at the time, and began by painting little medieval scenes, such as people reading (Reading) and portraits (Cervantes in Prison).  Her interest in medieval art was likely influenced by her childhood near Ussel in proximity of the ancient abbey Notre-Dame de Bonnaigue.  Her style changed as she received training from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867); his personality and harsh limits for women artists drove her away, but the influence of formalism from Ingres and his students would remain, showing up in her early works like Portrait of the Mother, Aline Pasquiou-Quivoron (1860), which reveals her study of Rembrandt (1606–1669).  The lasting influence of Ingres would later spread to her personal life.While painting at the Louvre in 1866, Marie met her husband Félix Bracquemond, later marrying him in 1869. Félix had studied under Joseph Guichard (1806–1880), a student of Ingres. By the 1870s, Marie's work had hints of Realism (The Backgammon Players) reflecting her appreciation of painters like Alfred Stevens (1823–1906). Félix would later exhibit with the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, with the two of them both submitting works to the fourth exhibition in 1879. During the late 1870s, the influence of the then nascent Impressionists began to make its mark on Marie, as artists like Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Claude Monet (1840–1926), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) came into her orbit of influence, respect, and admiration.Marie submitted three paintings to the fifth Impressionist exhibition from April 1–30, 1880, at 10 rue des Pyramides, one of which was believed to have been The Lady in White submitted under the title Portrait, cat. no. 85. At that exhibition, her paintings were shown alongside works by her husband as well as Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Degas, Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931), Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), Armand Guillaumin (1842–1927), Albert Lebourg (1849–1928), Léopold Levert (1819–1882), Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850–1924), Henri Rouart (1833-1912), Charles Tillot (1825–1895), Eugène Vincent Vidal (1850–1908), Victor Vignon (1847–1909), and Federico Zandomeneghi (1841–1917).
Jean-François Raffaëlli Impressionists Félix Bracquemond Federico Zandomeneghi Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Edgar Degas Joseph Guichard Marie Bracquemond Gustave Caillebotte Victor Vignon Paul Gauguin Armand Guillaumin Léopold Levert medieval art Rembrandt Ussel Camille Pissarro Charles Tillot Realism Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jean-Louis Forain Eugène Vincent Vidal Claude Monet Romanticism Albert Lebourg Henri Rouart Alfred Stevens