Constantin Guys

Constantin Guys captured the changing urban environment in the decades before the Impressionists took the bourgeoisie as their primary subject matter. The term "grisette" originally referred to the dress made of gray fabric worn by lower-class working women in early 19th-century Paris. Later in the century, the term came to embody a young, pretty, independent, and flirtatious working woman who was often a participant in the bohemian lifestyle of the Latin Quarter. The young woman depicted here, having moved far beyond the plain gray dress after which she was named, wears a fancy, full skirt that proclaims her new social identity, free from the confines of birthplace or family origins.