Portrait of Miss L…, or a Door Must Be Either Open or Closed

Tissot's etching is based on a painting from the same year, now at the Tate in London. The composition is reversed and depicts a model identified as Miss Lloyd pausing for a moment within the frame of a draped doorway. Tissot was an artist whose career paralleled the impressionists, even though he did not exhibit with the group. By the mid-1850s, Tissot moved to Paris, where he was influenced by both Whistler and Degas, fellow painter/etchers.