Portrait of Catherine Smith Gill and two of her children

Tissot was a close friend of the famous Impressionist Edgar Degas. Although Tissot’s work reflects some Impressionist qualities, he declined Degas’ invitation to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1874. Catherine Gill was the wife of Chapple Gill, a wealthy Liverpool cotton broker. The setting is her mother’s house, Lower Lee, at Woolton near Liverpool. The family fortune was made from the trade of cotton from the Americas in the years before the American Civil War (1861-1865). During this time enslaved African people were forced to pick cotton on plantations. Catherine’s dress here was probably made from this cotton.