"Charles Sprague Pearce’s interest in Orientalism and the
exotic directed his attention towards the current rage of Japonisme, the
love of everything Japanese that was spearheaded by shops such as
Siegfried Bing’s on the Rue Chauchat, Madame Desoye’s La Porte Chinoise,
and publications such as Le Japon Artistique. More and more artists,
such as Edouard Manet, James MacNeill Whistler, and Edgar Degas, began
collecting oriental objects and challenging their use of spatial
effects in order to simulate a kind of japanesque painting, replete
with Japanese kimonos, fans, and porcelain in an often Europeanized
setting. 'Femme à l’Éventail (Lady with a Fan)' of 1883 is an appropriate
example of Pearce’s integration of oriental objects, showing a European
woman dressed in her kimono, holding a Japanese fan. Furthering his
allegiance to this interest, Pearce exhibited 'Fantaisie (Fantasie)' at
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The work was
highly praised and attracted universal attention, garnering him a
third class medal, and marking a turning point in Pearce’s career and a
heightening of his artistic powers. 
"Fantasie" by Charles Sprague Pearce
Not easily satisfied, Pearce took on yet another theme: the peasant, a theme that had a long and enduring history not only in the works of artists such as Jean-François Millet and Charles-François Daubigny, but also in France’s social history. An early peasant composition by Pearce was 'Porteuse D’eau (The Water-Carrier),' for which he won a third-class medal at the 1883 Salon. In 1885 Pearce moved to Auvers-sur-Oise where he would remain the rest of his life and where he indulged his creativity by surrounding himself with nature. He exhibited 'Peines de Coeur (Troubles of the Heart)' at the Salon that same year, a painting that was also shown at the Pennsylvania Academy where it won the Temple Gold medal for best figure painting."
(Excerpt from Reh's Gallery biography on Charles Sprague Pearce.)
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