Portrait of Marie Schewtzoff

In Le Pouldu in 1895, Slewinski met the vacationing Russian sisters Marie and Eugenie Schewtzoff. He painted their portraits in 1897 and exhibited the canvases in the Georges Thomas gallery in Paris in 1898. This is the portrait of his future sister-in-law Marie Schewtzoff (1874–1927). A muse to the artists, she acquired several canvases by Filiger and O’Conor and knew the poet Ernest Dowson, who dedicated a poem to her in 1896. In 1900 she married Ernest Le Grand, a musician from Nantes; her sister Eugenie married Slewinski in 1899. Slewinski used sombre tones and a harmonious palette of dark green, bright yellow and burgundy-pink in this portrait. As was his habit, he placed a bouquet of flowers and some books beside his model, who posed against a neutral background. The focal point of the work is the woman’s carefully observed face.