The Meeting, 1884

The Meeting (Un meeting), painted by Marie Bashkirtseff in 1884, is an iconic realist canvas portraying a group of Parisian street children in a lively exchange. Exhibited at the 1884 Salon, it gained public acclaim, but Bashkirtseff was angered by her lack of a medal, writing, “I am exceedingly indignant […] because […] really rather poor works have received prizes,” and expressing a deep fear of being forgotten—a pressing concern as she faced terminal tuberculosis, dying just months later on October 31, 1884. Bashkirtseff admired the Naturalist style of Jules Bastien-Lepage, yet shifted his rural themes to an urban setting, depicting six young boys in worn clothes, suggestive of their working-class backgrounds, while a girl walks away on the right, perhaps reflecting Bashkirtseff’s own critique of male-dominated spaces. The Meeting was the first painting by a woman accepted into the Louvre, shortly after her death, marking a historic achievement. Today, it resides in