Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) In the Dining Room Chester Dale Collection

Characteristically feminine in her choice of subject and delicacy of coloring, Berthe Morisot has painted an interior of the house at Bougival, near Paris, where she spent her summers in the 1880’s. Probably it is her housemaid, busy in the dining room, who stands between the open cupboard and the table. A playful little dog adds a touch of animation to the domestic scene.

During the middle of her career, Berthe Morisot was strongly influenced by Impressionism. In this picture particular details of the furniture, of the girl’s costume, or even of her face, held interest for the painter only in so far as they reflected light in different ways. Much as it does in Monet’s art, light seems to fill the scene and blur the edges of the forms. Yet, as in Manet’s pictures, the colors here have not the daring brilliance of the spectrum hues Monet used. Berthe Morisot has sustained a refined color harmony of delicate warm and cool hues in the blue-grays and creamy highlights. Her composition, too, shows her allegiance to Manet rather than to Monet; the forms are broadly seen in silhouette so that light and shadow do not impinge upon them enough to destroy their character as elements in the design.

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Canvas. 24⅛ × 19¾ inches Painted 1886

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