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Shown from the knees up, a young girl with pale skin, wearing a coral-peach dress, sits facing and looking at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her knees are angled slightly to our left, and her hands rest in her lap. She has a round face and smooth, lightly flushed cheeks. She has brown eyes under arched brows, a delicate, snub nose, and her rose-pink lips are closed. Her hair, which is painted with broad strokes of caramel brown and moss green, is parted on one side and pulled smoothly back, presumably tied behind her head. Tendrils fall over her shoulders. Her dress is gathered around her neck and tied with a bow at the back. The loose sleeves fall to just below her elbows, and the dress is belted around the waist. A curving swipe of canary-yellow paint could be a buckle at the front. The fabric of the dress is painted with long, visible strokes of shell and rose pink, butter yellow, and ivory white, and a few touches of sage green and periwinkle blue for shadows. She wears a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The space around her is loosely painted with strokes of electric and cobalt blue, with unpainted canvas visible at some of the edges. To our left, over the girl's shoulder, a wooden bird cage holds an emerald-green parakeet. The bird is streaked with royal blue along its back, and the area around its hooked beak is apple red. The cage has a mint-green bow and ribbon along the top. The artist signed the painting in green on the lower right corner: “Berthe Morisot.”

Berthe Morisot

The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet, 1890

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 82

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 65.6 x 52.1 cm (25 13/16 x 20 1/2 in.)

framed: 85.7 x 71.4 cm (33 3/4 x 28 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.50

Artists / Makers

Berthe Morisot (artist) French, 1841 - 1895

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower right: Berthe Morisot

Provenance

The sitter, Julie Manet [later Mme Ernest Rouart, 1879-1966], Paris, until at least 1929.[1] (Galerie Jacques Dubourg, Paris); sold 18 July 1952 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1] According to a label on the back of the painting, the painting still belonged to Mme Rouart when it was lent to a 1929 exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune in Paris.

Associated Names

Dale, Chester
Galerie Jacques Dubourg
Rouart, Ernest, Mme

Exhibition History

1896: Berthe Morisot, Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1896

1922: Réunion d'oeuvres par Berthe Morisot, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris, 1922, no. 5

1929: Berthe Morisot, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1929, no. 36

1936: Berthe Morisot 1840-1895, Wildenstein & Co., New York, 1936, no. 2

1953: Berthe Morisot and her Circle: Paintings from the Rouart Collection, Paris, The Art Gallery of Toronto; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and other venues [shown in New York only], not it catalogue

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1961: Bataille, M.L., and Georges Wildenstein. Berthe Morisot, catalogue des peintures, pastels et aquarelles. Paris, 1961: no.262.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 89, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 94.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 83, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 246, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 459, no. 661, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 285, repro.