Federico Zandomeneghi

Young Parisian women were one of Zandomeneghi's favorite subjects and the portraits he made of them marked the beginning of his association with the Impressionist group.  He had first started to paint in an Impressionistic style after meeting the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who staked all his fortunes on this new movement.  This study was likely a part of Durand-Ruel's inventory, a theory supported by an indistinct partial label on the reverse.

Zandomeneghi was friendly with Degas, whose own intimate sketches of undecorated working class women bathing and dressing may have inspired the present work.