Katherine Keenum

This loosely painted detail of the distant Arc de Triomphe in the background of Hassam’s
painting of the Champs Elysées is the kind of thing I had in mind when Jeanette sarcastically suggests sketching Adeline Vann in the Tuileries Garden with the arch just visible. I love the whole painting for its depiction of two girls walking under umbrellas and various wheeled vehicles, including an omnibus in the rain.

In a passage that was edited out, Jeanette is pleased to receive cigar box lids from Harold Vann as supports for oil sketches. For a blog post about Paul Serusier, an artist trained at the Académie Julian whose painting on a cigar box lid at Pont Aven became iconic to the Nabis circle, click here.