Berthe Morisot: Le Cerisier, 1891

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

Much of the art world pre-dating the 20th Century is clearly dominated by male artists. Those few women who showed talent and skill were often depicted as followers of great male painters rather than great artists in their own right. The works of Berthe Morisot  and Mary Cassatt are still rarely discussed without comparing their works to leading male Impressionists, including Manet, Monet, Degas and others.

Her first appearance in the prestigious Salon de Paris came at the age of twenty-three in 1864, with the acceptance of two landscape paintings. She continued to show regularly in the Salon, to generally favourable reviews, until 1873, the year before the very first Impressionist exhibition which was held in Paris. She enjoyed a highly successful career, participating in the official Salons and in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions. With her light palette, feathery brushstrokes, and quiet scenes of female domesticity, she was considered by many critics of the time as the purest and most successful of the Impressionists.

Morisot painted what she experienced on a daily basis. Most of her paintings include domestic scenes of family, children, ladies, and flowers, depicting what women's life was like in the late nineteenth century. Instead of portraying the public space and society, Morisot preferred private, intimate scenes. With refreshing disregard for prior stylistic conventions, Morisot glosses over facial features and dispenses with other descriptive details to present a snapshot glimpse of a modern-day subject. An admiring critic wrote: "she grinds flower petals onto her palette, in order to spread them later on her canvas with airy, witty touches, producing something vital, fine, and charming. Morisot was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet.

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HC-1342: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)