When the painting was first exhibited in Paris in 1882 and 1883, critics were struck by the oddness of the composition and "wooden forms" of the figures. In 1887, Henry James described the painting as representing a "happy play-world ... of charming children"; his uncomplicated reading went largely unquestioned for nearly a century. Modern criticism has acknowledged the painting's unsettling qualities, that it is a picture both beautifully painted and psychologically unnerving, in which the girls appear to be seen at successive phases of childhood, retreating into alienation and a loss of innocence as they grow older.