‘Self-Portrait with Palette’ (1880)

Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-1884) was born Mariya Konstyantynivna Bashkirtseva to a wealthy noble family near Poltava. She traveled widely across Europe at a young age and ended up in France, where she studied to be an artist at one of the few schools to accept females. A large number of Bashkirtseff’s works were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, but at least 60 survive. She was influenced by her friend Jules Bastien-Lepage’s admiration for realism and naturalism, though Bashkirtseff was more inspired by urban scenes as subjects. A feminist, she wrote several articles in her early twenties under the nom de plume ‘Pauline Orrel.’ She is perhaps most famous for the journal she kept from age 13. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 24, but her diary was published in France in 1887 and was an immediate success. An English translation appeared in 1889 and was admired by William Gladstone and George Bernard Shaw.

‘In the Studio’ (1881)

‘The Meeting’ (1884)

‘The Umbrella’ (1883)