Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie Bashkirtseff, born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva (Russian: Мария Константиновна Башкирцева; 24 November [O.S. 12 November] 1858 – 31 October 1884), was an émigré artist who was born into a noble family on their estate near the city of Poltava. She lived and worked in Paris, and died at the age of 25.

Life and painting career

Bashkirtseff was born in Gavrontsi (Havrontsi) near Poltava, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), to a wealthy noble family. Her father was a local marshal of nobility, Konstantin Pavlovich Bashkirtsev. Her mother Maria Stepanovna Babanina (1833—1920) also belonged to Russian nobles. Her parents separated when she was 12. As a result, she grew up mostly abroad, traveling with her mother throughout most of Europe, with longer spells in Germany and on the Riviera, until the family settled in Paris. Educated privately and with early musical talent, she lost her chance at a career as a singer when illness destroyed her voice. She then determined to become an artist, and she studied painting in France at the Robert-Fleury studio and at the Académie Julian.

The Académie, as one of the few establishments that accepted female students, attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. Fellow students at the Académie included Anna Bilińska and especially Louise Breslau, whom Bashkirtseff viewed as her only real rival. Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable, if fairly conventional, body of work in her short lifetime, exhibiting at the Paris Salon as early as 1880 and every year thereafter until her death (except 1883). In 1884, she exhibited a portrait of Paris slum children entitled The Meeting and a pastel portrait of her cousin, for which she received an honorable mention.