Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/93

32 kirtseff and Bastien-Lepage. Both the great artist and the dying girl were very ill, but for some time she and her mother visited him every two or three days. He seemed almost to live on these visits and complained if they were omitted. At last, ill as Bastien-Lepage was, he was the better able of the two to make a visit. On October i6th she writes of his being brought to her and made comfortable in one easy-chair while she was in another. "Ah, if I could only paint!" he said. "And I?" she replied. "There is the end to this year's picture!"

These visits were continued. October 20th she writes of his increasing feebleness. She wrote no more, and in eleven days was dead.

In 1885 the works of Marie Bashkirtseff were exhibited. In the catalogue was printed Francois Copp6e*s account of a visit he had made her mother a few months before Marie's death. He saw her studio and her works, and wrote, after speaking of the "Meeting," as follows :

"At the Exhibition—Salon—before this charming picture, the public had with a unanimous voice bestowed the medal on Mile. B. who had been already 'mentioned' the year before. Why was this verdict not confirmed by the jury? Because the artist was a foreigner? Who knows? Perhaps because of her wealth. This injustice made her suffer, and she endeavored—the noble child—to avenge herself by redoubling her efforts.

"In one hour I saw there twenty canvases commenced; a hundred designs—drawings, painted studies, the cast of a statue, portraits which suggested to me the name of