Young Girl in Profile

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

This print depicts Hélène Chatenay, a seamstress who became Félix Vallotton’s partner during the 1890s. The two lived together in Paris’s Latin Quarter until Vallotton abruptly married Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques in 1899 and assumed her haut bourgeois lifestyle. During their years together, Chatenay was a frequent model for Vallotton and the profile view seen here was also realized as a drawing two years earlier. Although well known for his woodcuts, Félix Vallotton made only 23 etchings, all around 1890. He began by making copies after Rembrandt and other past masters in the late 1880s before moving on to his own subjects, mostly figures and cityscapes.