Portrait of Madame Boursier and her Daughter
- Original dimensions
- 56.8 x 74.5 cm
- Museum
- Brooklyn Museum
- Year
- 1873
Scene depicted
This canvas illustrates an intimate scene, where Madame Boursier and her daughter pose together, their gazes imbued with sweetness and complicity. Beyond appearance, the work aims to pay tribute to life and the beauty of family relationships, capturing a moment of innocent exchange, imbued with palpable warmth. The treatment of light and the lightness of tones make this scene a pictorial work of unparalleled emotional depth.
Historical context
Created in 1873, this painting is a true window into Parisian life in the 19th century. In the vibrant context of this century, where the Impressionist movement begins to take flight, Berthe Morisot , an emblematic figure of this artistic current, offers contemporary viewers an intimate representation of motherhood. The canvas is currently housed at the Brooklyn Museum , an art sanctuary located in New York. Its dimensions, 56.8 by 74.5 cm, make this work as delicate as it is captivating.
Place in the artist's career
The Portrait of Madame Boursier and Her Daughter is situated at a turning point in the promising career of Berthe Morisot . She asserts herself as a pioneer of female subjects in art, and this work stands out from her previous canvas , Woman with a Parasol, both in its intimate composition and the muted emotion it conveys. She evolves, in a poetic and personal atmosphere, within an Impressionist universe, the vein of her art.
Anecdote
“The morning light on a mother and her daughter's face is an eternity to capture” could say Berthe Morisot , inspired by the gentle spring rays filtering through the curtains of her home in Paris. This phrase resonates like a melody that dances around her masterpiece , revealing the tenderness and poetry of the mother-daughter relationship, beautifully frozen in this painting .