Helene Kröller-Müller receives the almost life-size portrait as a present from her husband Anton to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in 1912. She is very impressed by this work, in particular by the way Fantin-Latour painted the eyes. She writes: ‘The eye sockets are large dark masses. It is not until one looks longer that the eyes appear, but then with an extraordinary depth and beauty that we cannot behold without being moved, and which only a very great artist can create.’
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