Art Institute of Chicago

Woman in a Garden

Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)

Date

1882–83

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This work was probably begun in the summer of 1882, when Berthe Morisot and her family rented a house in Bougival, a picturesque village along the Seine River in northern France. Morisot spent the season there with her husband, Eugène Manet (artist Édouard Manet's brother), and their nearly four-year-old daughter, Julie. The child wearing a straw hat in the background of this painting is likely based on Julie, while the identity of the main figure is unknown. Morisot applied paint as if she were making a landscape in the Impressionist style, slashing acid green pigments and bluish ochers across the canvas to transcribe the effects of dappled sunlight without differentiating between the strokes used for the figure and setting.

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