Marie Sanlaville

Her speciality was playing male roles (en travesti), which was common at the period, and she eventually succeeded Eugénie Fiocre as the company’s foremost dancer in this capacity.

She was the mistress of the American painter Julius LeBlanc Stewart and later of Count Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, for whom she cared in his final illness.

One of the fruits of this sitting was the picture of Marie in the role of Fanella that was published in the magazine La Vie Moderne in February 1882.

[3] Guiard also painted a portrait of Marie sitting with a book in her lap[4] which may be intended to underline the intelligence for which she was noted.

But he also engages with Stéphane Mallarmé's theorising about the role of the dancer, particularly in the essay Ballets (1888) that appeared at the time Degas was writing.