In Paris, Olga Boznańska lived near the portrait sitter and visited her. She painted an oil portrait of her, and a quick preparatory drawing is preserved in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków in one of the artist's sketchbooks (inv. no. MNK III-r.a-3065/). At Barney's request, she painted a portrait of the French poet Remy de Gourmont.

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 Dayton, Ohio - 1972 Paris) was an American literary figure who lived in Paris for most of her life. She was a colourful but also scandalous figure, flaunting her homosexuality; celebrity women associated with her included Liane de Pougy, the American painter Romaine Brooks, the poet Renée Vivien and the French writer Colette. Natalie's mother, Alice Barney Pike (1857-1931) was a painter, a pupil of Carolus-Duran and Whistler.

For more than 60 years - from 1909 - Natalie Barney ran a literary salon in Paris on Jacob Street, which over the years hosted notable figures including Auguste Rodin, Rilke, Colette, James Joyce, Paul Valéry, T. S. Eliot, Isadora Duncan, Ezra Pound, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Gide, Peggy Guggenheim, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Truman Capote, Françoise Sagan. Boznanska lived in Barney's neighbourhood and probably visited her. She painted her portrait, which is now in the collection of the Smitshonian American Art Museum given as a gift to Yvonne Guehennec and William E. Huntington.

Technical data: oil, cardboard, 77.8 × 49.8 cm.