Oil on canvas, 188?, signed 'A. Toulmouche' and dated lower right, lined. 18 1/4 x 12 in., 18 3/4 x 12 1/4 in. (frame). Note: This work appears to be a study for Toulmouche's large painting Le Billet (The Note), from 1883. There are slight differences in the hair and treatment of the eyes. In this study, the woman wears two small rings; in the large painting she wears one larger ring. Auguste Toulmouche was a cousin of Impressionist painter Claude Monet and an established Parisian artist at the time Monet was beginning to paint. Monet studied for a short period in 1862 with his cousin, but Toulmouche felt Monet's talents would be better cultivated with his own teacher, Charles Gleyre. Toulmouche was an academic Realist painter who specialized in portraits of Parisian women.,