Eva Gonzalès
Eva Gonzalès was a French Impressionist painter. She was a very established artist and praised by the critics. She was Édouard Manet's student; like him she never exhibited in the Impressionist exhibitions in Paris, but she is considered part of the group because of her painting style. Unfortunately, in 1883 she died in childbirth at the age of 34, five days after the death of Manet.
Gonzalès often asked her sister Jeanne (also a talented artist) to model for her quiet domestic scenes of daily life, and she likely posed as the fashionable sitter shown here arranging violets in a blue vase. This intimate pastel, with its pearly gray and pink palette and an ensemble of pictorial elements that stimulate the senses—from the rustling gown to the fragrant flowers—strikes a chord with works made in the late 1870s by Manet.
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P.S. Here are four women Impressionists you shouldn’t forget!