In the copyright files of the Library of Congress there is a photograph of this picture copyrighted by Muller-Ury in 1889 and presumably painted that year, together with another called ‘Miss Marguerite’ [on the back: Copyright Deposit Fine Arts Division, Rec’d Oct 26 -89, Class W1, W2, Number 32475, 32474, Muller-Uri].
The picture’s style suggests that Muller-Ury had seen an 1868 painting by Gustave Jean Jacquet called ‘Femme a l’eventail’ where a girl dressed in white stands coquettishly in front of a tree in a landscape with her elbow raised as she leans against the tree. The title may have been derived from a famous poem by Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864) that had been set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1865.
