James Tissot, born Jacques Joseph Tissot, was a French native who came to London in 1871 and made his name and fortune as a painter and printmaker of English society.

“Reverie” is a portrait of Mrs. Kathleen Newton, Tissot’s muse, model and lover, and her son, Cecil. Mrs. Newton was a divorcee and Irish, that and the couple’s openly living together scandalized London society.

The etching is dated 1880, and in 1882 Kathleen Newton, the love of Tissot’s life, would die at 28 of tuberculosis, devastating the artist. They had six years together.

Tissot developed his etching talent with the help of Francis Seymour Haden, one of the major etching revivalists and brother-in-law of James A.M. Whistler, no mean etcher himself. Whistler was an acquaintance, and Tissot was a friend and mentor to French Impressionist Edgar Degas.