Tout passé (Breslau, Salon 1879)

Overview

Tout passé ("All is past") was Louise Breslau's Salon debut in 1879, catalogued as no. 408, "Tout passé!...", under "Breslau (Mlle Louise), née à Zurich (Suisse), élève de M. T. Robert-Fleury, avenue des Ternes, 40" (Explication des ouvrages... Salon de 1879, Internet Archive). Wikipedia notes that Breslau was the only student of the Académie Julian women's atelier to debut at the Salon that year. The sitter was her friend, the Italian singer Maria Feller, with whom Breslau and Sophie Schaeppi then shared an apartment (French Wikipedia, "Louise Breslau"; the English article instead calls it "a self-portrait that included her two friends", which does not match Marie's description below). Marie's own account has one woman in an armchair.

No public-domain image or present location was found; none is on Wikimedia Commons. Do not confuse it with Breslau's later Portrait des amies (Salon 1881, now Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva), the group portrait of Breslau, Feller and Schaeppi, which brought her the honorable mention of 1881 (French Wikipedia; French Ministry of Culture, "Louise Breslau").

Marie and this work

1879-05-12 (085.0069, Paris, Salon): "La peinture de Breslau est une grande belle toile occupée par un grand beau fauteuil en cuir doré dans lequel est assise son amie Maria en robe verte foncée éteinte, quelque chose de bleu gris au cou; une main tient un portrait et une fleur, l'autre un paquet de lettres qu'elle vient de dénouer d'une faveur rouge. Arrangement simple, sujet connu. Dessin admirable et grande harmonie de tons."

1882-11-23 (097.0132): Marie, stung by criticism of her own slow progress, asks whether her pastel or Irma qui rit is so inferior to "Breslau en 1879": "Breslau au bout de trois ans de peinture expose son amie Maria, moi au bout de trois ans j'ai peint Irma".

1883-08-20 (101.0219): "lorsque j'ai vu Breslau avec son amie Maria..." concerns the two women's relationship, not the picture.

Sources

• Explication des ouvrages de peinture... Salon de 1879, no. 408: https://archive.org/details/explicationdesou1879soci
• French Wikipedia, "Louise Breslau"; English Wikipedia, "Louise Catherine Breslau".
• French Ministry of Culture, "Louise Breslau (Munich, 1856 - Paris, 1927)".
• See also the Breslau entry.
• Diary: 085.0069, 097.0132.