Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/123

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WOMEN IN THE FINE ARTS


ures, among which were landscapes, two representing September and October at Saint-Cloud ; two of fruit and flowers; all of which were admired, while the "Dreamer" was honored with a place in the Luxembourg. In the same Salon she exhibited six pictures in pastel: four portraits, and heads of a gamin and of a little girl. The portrait of Margot is an ideal picture of a happy child, seated at a table, resting her head on her left hand while with the right she turns the leaves of a book. A toy chicken and a doll are on the table beside her. In the Salon of 1903 she exhibited five pictures of flowers and another called the "Child with Long Hair."

I was first interested in this artist by the frequent references to her and her work in the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. They were fellow-pupils in the Julian Academy, Soon after she began her studies there Marie Bashkirtseff writes: "Breslau has been working at the studio two years, and she is twenty; I am seventeen, but Breslau had taken lessons for a long time before coming here. ... How well that Breslau draws!"

"That miserable Breslau has composed a picture, ’Monday Morning, or the Choice of a Model.' Every one belonging to the studio is in it—Julian standing between Amalie and me. It is correctly done, the perspective is good, the likenesses—everything. When one can do a thing like that, one cannot fail to become a great artist. You have guessed it, have you not? I am jealous. That is well, for it will serve as a stimulus to me."

"I am jealous of Breslau. She does not draw at all like a woman."