Most of the works that Pissarro submitted to the 1882 Impressionist exhibition were figure paintings in which the local villagers who had routinely animated his rural landscapes assumed monumental form, indicating a shift in his artistic focus. Pissarro's neighbor in Pontoise, a fifty-six-year-old mother of four named Marie Larcheveque, sat for this work, which was shown as Laveuse, etude (Washerwoman, Study).