When seventeen she made her first picture of any importance. "While they were playing cards last night I made a rough sketch of the players--and this morning I transferred the sketch to canvas. I am delighted to have made a picture of persons sitting down in different attitudes; I copied the position of the hands and arms, the expressions of the countenance, etc. I had never before done anything but heads, which I was satisfied to scatter over the canvas like flowers."
Her enthusiasm for her art constantly increased. She was not willing to acknowledge her semi-invalidism and was filled with the desire to do something in art that would live after her. She was opposed by her family, who wished her to be in fashionable society. At length she had her way, and when not quite eighteen began to study regularly at the Julian Academy. She worked eight and nine hours a day. Julian encouraged her, she rejoiced in being with "real artists who have exhibited in the Salon and whose pictures are bought," and declared herself "happy, happy!" Before long M. Julian told her that she might become a great artist, and the first time that Robert-Fleury saw her work and learned how little she had studied, and that she had never before drawn from a living model, he said: "Well, then, you have extraordinary talent for painting; you are specially gifted, and I advise you to work hard."
Her masters always assured her of her talent, but she was much of the time depressed. She admired the work of Mlle. Breslau and acknowledged herself jealous of the Swiss artist. But after a year of study she took the second prize in the Academy, and admitted that she ought to be content.
Robert-Fleury took much interest in her work, and she began to hope to equal Breslau; but she was as often despondent as she was happy, which no doubt was due to her health, for she was already stricken with the malady from which she died. Julian wondered why, with her talent, it was so difficult for her to paint; to herself she seemed paralyzed.
In the autumn of 1879 she took a studio, and, besides her painting, she essayed modelling. In 1880 her portrait of her sister was exhibited at the Salon, and her mother and other friends were gratified by its acceptance.