American Art Collaborative

Whistler worked extensively on the copper plate for this portrait of Josephine Durwend, a Parisian dancer known as Finette. In a later state of the print he replaced the ledge visible at the left of the image with a low table, to which he added, among other objects, a mask and a feather, items associated with dancers and the theater. The cigarette Finette holds in her right hand, which rests against her elegant silk cloak, adds an additional element of realism to this work, which provocatively portrays a woman of the lower classes in a dignified, aristocratic manner.