Painted in 1880, this is a portrait of Tissot's mistress Mrs Kathleen Newton, whom Christopher Wood describes as 'the perfect vehicle for (his) art, in which feminine beauty and elegance play such a large part ... she walked into Tissot's pictures like an actress who had found her ultimate role' (Christopher Wood, Tissot, 1986, p.87). Tissot's interest in 'types of beauty' resulted in several series of paintings, culminating in La Femme á Paris, fifteen canvases showing parisiennes of various classes, exhibited in Paris in 1885 and in London the following year.