In the Studio with Palette

Marie Bashkirtseff  "Self Portrait with a Palette"  1880

 Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva, more commonly known as Marie Bashkirtseff, was born in the Ukraine in 1858 but moved to Paris with her mother as a child.. When she died of tuberculosis in 1884 at age 25, she had already made her mark as a painter, sculptor and intellectual, and, after her death, as a writer. A diarist from her early teens, her autobiographical I Am the Most Interesting Book of All, was published posthumously in 1887, was an instant hit, and is still in print today. Her letters to writer Guy Maupassant were published in 1891, also to great acclaim. An early feminist, Bashkirtseff wrote several articles under a nom de plume for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper, La Citoyenne.

Marie Baskirtseff  "in the Studio"  1881  Dnipropetrovsk State Art Museum

The multi-talented Bashkirtseff studied at the the Académie Julian which was one of the few respected art ateliers accepting women students at that time. Men and women studied the same subjects at the Julian but in separate classes, and we can see the women's painting class in the piece above. Bashkirtseff has included a self-portrait (with palette) and possibly also a portrait of the woman she considered her greatest artistic equal/rival Louise Breslau (shown speaking with her.)