BASHKIRTSEFF, M A R I A CONSTANTINOVNA [MARIE] (1860-1884), Russian artist and writer, was born at Gavrontsi, in the government of Pultowa, in Russia, on Nov. 23, 186o. Her parents lived apart, and the child spent her early life with her mother in various health resorts in Germany and the Riviera. She received a good education in ancient and modern languages, and began to study singing. But her voice failed her, and she began the serious study of painting in Tony Robert Fleury's studio in Paris in 1877. In 1880 she exhibited in the salon a portrait of a woman; in 1881 she exhibited the "Atelier Julian"; in 1882 "Jean et Jacques"; in 1884 the "Meeting," and a portrait in pastel of a lady—her cousin—now in the Luxem bourg gallery, for which she was awarded a mention honorable. Her health, always delicate, could not endure the double strain of artistic work and social life, and she died of tuberculosis on Oct. 31, 1884. But it is not as an artist that Marie is remembered, though she had marked talent.
From her childhood Marie Bashkirtseff kept an autobiographical journal, part of which was published after her death. These bril liant confessions (Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, 189o) bear the stamp of truth, and constitute a record of extraordinary interest, though the editing aroused some protest.
A further instalment of Marie Bashkirtseff literature was pub lished in the shape of letters between her and Guy de Maupassant, with whom she started a correspondence under a feigned name and without revealing her identity.
See Mathilde Blind, A Study of Marie Bashkirtseff (1892) ; The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, trans. with an intro., by Mathilde Blind (189o) ; The Letters of Marie Bashkirtseff (1891) ; Alberic Cahuet, Moussia: The Life and Death of Marie Bashkirtseff (1929) .