L'ambitieuse

James Tissot's 'L'ambitieuse' of 1885 belongs to his celebrated series 'La Femme à Paris,' in which he systematically examined different social types of modern Parisian womanhood. The ambitious woman — presumably a social climber using beauty and determination to ascend — was a recognizable type in the era of the Third Republic, and Tissot depicted her with the combination of meticulous detail and social commentary that defined his mature work. Having returned from London to Paris after the death of his companion Kathleen Newton, Tissot brought to French subject matter the Anglophone taste for narrative legibility he had cultivated across the Channel.

Tissot's extraordinary technical facility is evident in every surface — the shimmer of fabrics, the social drama encoded in posture and gaze, the precisely rendered interior setting. His palette is rich and observed from reality with the care of a virtuoso. Paint handling is impeccably smooth in the academic tradition despite the modern subject.