Painted in 1880, Le Salon du peintre depicts the lavish salon of Alfred Stevens’ home at 65, rue des Martyrs, where the artist and his wife, Marie Blanc, regularly hosted friends and fellow artists. Stevens frequently used his home as a setting for his scenes of modern life, drawing upon the rich array of furnishings and objets d’art that surrounded him. The well-appointed drawing room, decorated with Empire-style furniture, an Oriental rug, a Japanese screen, a crystal chandelier, and large gilt mirrors, testifies to the success Stevens had achieved by this time. A glass cabinet displays painted fans and porcelain, while smaller pictures and decorative objects fill the walls and mantelpiece. At the center, a large bouquet of pink, red, and white flowers rests on a round pedestal table with a lion-claw base. Late-afternoon light filters into the room, its glow reflected in the large mirror above the seated women. Among the works on the rear wall, hanging beside the candelabra, is an apparent depiction of Stevens’ own The Parisian Sphinx (1880, Clark Art Institute). The painting with the woman in the red bodice and white satin skirt evokes Gerard ter Borch the Younger’s similarly fashionable modern life scene, The Suitor's Visit (1658, National Gallery of Art). The woman seated on the red sofa, her feet resting on a small tuffet, appears to be the hostess, distinguished from her guests by her black dinner dress, with its elbow-length sleeves and deep square décolletage, and by her lack of gloves. Her two visitors wear pale ballgowns with cuirass-style bodices, fashionable in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Fitted over the hips, the bodices feature narrow straps that leave the shoulders and upper arms exposed; elaborate skirts fall into long trains. Floral ornaments in their hair and pendant earrings complete their ensembles. Their elaborate gowns, luxuriously trimmed with tassels, embroidery, lace and artificial flowers, suggest that they may be on their way to a ball or other evening entertainment. The seated guest has removed one glove and holds a large hand-painted fan, an accessory that had become an important site for artistic experimentation. Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, and Louise Abbéma were among the artists who treated the fan as an artistic medium in its own right. A study for the standing woman, Femme en blanc (fragment du Salon du Peintre, rue des Martyrs), was exhibited at the 1907 Stevens exhibition in Brussels and Antwerp (cat. 76). The paintings Stevens included in his interiors were likewise carefully considered. The most prominent among these is Morisot’s Les lilas à Maurecourt (1874, Private collection), which hangs above six other smaller works on the rear wall. It depicts Morisot’s sister Edma Pontillon with her daughters Jeanne and Blanche in the garden at Maurecourt, the Pontillons’ family estate. Although Stevens is not known to have owned this particular painting, he clearly admired it, incorporating it into several compositions, including Retour au Nid (see Lefebvre 141). Its presence is particularly significant given the close ties between the Stevens and Morisot families. Stevens and Morisot moved within overlapping social and artistic circles, and their families regularly visited one another. Stevens owned a portrait by Morisot, as well as works by other contemporary artists including Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Édouard Manet. Marie Blanc, who came from a wealthy Belgian family, brought with her a collection of Old Master and nineteenth-century paintings, including works by Hans Holbein, Théodore Géricault, and Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (Lefebvre 133). Delacroix was a witness at Alfred and Marie’s wedding. A red-chalk drawing of Marie Stevens by Théophile Gautier (1860, Private collection) rests on the mantel (Lefebvre 137). This note written by Justine De Young, Ph.D.