Petite Italienne chanteuse des rues

Petite Italienne chanteuse des rues (Little Italian Street Singer) belongs to a category of Parisian genre subject — the street musician, the child entertainer, the immigrant performer — that connected Bazille's figure work to the social world of Second Empire Paris. Italian street musicians were familiar figures in mid-19th-century Paris, depicted by Courbet, Daumier, and others as representatives of a working-class urban life contrasting with bourgeois comfort. Bazille's treatment is more intimate than Courbet's social commentary, focusing on the figure's specific physical presence rather than her social symbolism.

The street singer is depicted in direct frontal light, her dark Italian complexion and simple dress contrasting with the pale ground. Bazille's handling of the child's face shows the careful observation of his portraiture: the specific structure of her features rather than a generic child face, rendered with the firm drawing he had developed under Gleyre.