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Lot Essay
In 1893-1894, the Impressionist artist Berthe Morisot painted her teenaged daughter, Julie, lost in a day dream. Julie, the only child of Morisot and her husband, Eugène Manet, served as a model for her mother’s painting throughout her childhood. In Julie rêveuse, Morisot conjured her daughter’s radiant, adolescent beauty—her rich auburn hair, distinctive, almond-shaped olive-brown eyes, and pale pink lips. Yet Morisot also managed to convey the complex inner world and emotional life of her daughter; Julie herself would later describe her pensive expression as possessing “l’air triste et fière” (“a sad and proud air”) (quoted in Berthe Morisot, exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, 2002, p. 422). Widely exhibited and illustrated over the past decades, Julie rêveuse has remained in the esteemed collection of the Rouart family since it passed to Julie after her mother’s death in 1895. Most recently it was included in a landmark exhibition focusing on Julie at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, also featuring on the cover of the catalogue.
The bold, evocative brushwork that defines Morisot’s artistic legacy is on full display in Julie rêveuse. Her liberal strokes of paint—often applied to unprimed canvases—became increasingly vigorous and confident over the course of her career. Yet Julie rêveuse possesses a classical composition—Julie assumes the traditional posture of melancholy—and a corporeal solidity that reveals Morisot’s early training, copying Old Master paintings at the Louvre.
Julie rêveuse also demonstrates Morisot’s enduring interest in modern fashion. Throughout her career, the artist painted the material effects of bourgeoises parisiennes: dresses, hats, gloves, scarves and jewelry. In the present work, the artist’s daughter is informally dressed in a white chemise gown with full sleeves, cinched at the waist with a marigold ribbon. This dress suggests the fresh, breezy costume of spring or summer. Julie’s long, thick hair, comprised of chestnut, copper and vermillion, is similarly arranged in a youthful, casual style: loosely tied back at the crown, with the rest of her wavy locks tumbling down her shoulders.
Morisot, who specialized in the representation of Parisian women, was herself one of just a handful of women artists to exhibit with the Impressionists during their eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. During this period, contemporary critics identified Morisot’s painting style as the most daring of her contemporaries; as Paul Mantz wrote, “The truth is that if there is a single Impressionist in the group…it is Berthe Morisot…[Her painting] has all the freshness of improvisation” (quoted in Berthe Morisot, exh. cat., The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2018, p. 89). Others praised the perceived femininity of her painterly touch: “Berthe Morisot is French in her refinement, her elegance, her joyfulness, her lightheartedness…she grinds petals of flowers on her palette, in order to then spread them out onto the canvas using spirited brushstrokes, that are blown and thrown onto the surface slightly randomly” (C. Ephrussi, “Exposition des artistes indépendants,” in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1 May 1880, pp. 485-488 quoted in ibid., p. 93).
At the age of thirty-seven and at the height of her career, Morisot gave birth to Julie on 14 November 1878. Morisot abstained from the fourth exhibition of 1879, but she submitted her work to every other Impressionist installation—making her one of the most frequent and productive members of that historic, avant-garde experiment. Indeed, rather than hindering her career, motherhood seems to have provided Morisot with ample new inspiration for her art. As art historian Anne Higonnet wrote, “Morisot worked while she raised Julie. Not only did she use her child frequently as her model, but she used painting as a form of pedagogy, and as soon as Julie was old enough, mother and daughter painted side by side” (Berthe Morisot, Los Angeles, 1994, p. 190).
Together with her husband Eugène—brother of the painter, Edouard Manet—Morisot raised Julie in their home near the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. There, Morisot worked outdoors in their family garden or salon. After the death of her husband in 1892, however, she rented another apartment on the rue Weber to serve as a dedicated studio. In this new working space, Morisot experienced a burst of productivity; she created dozens of new expressive, brightly colored canvases that define this final phase of her career, including Julie rêveuse.
Morisot died in 1895, the year after she painted this intimate portrait of her beloved daughter. Julie rêveuse was included in a posthumous exhibition staged at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1896, organized by Julie with several of Morisot’s Impressionist colleagues: Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with a catalogue introduction written by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Of this exhibition, Julie wrote in her diary, “It’s a paradise, with feminine delicacy combined with the power of the drawing. Ah, Maman, what talent! Your oeuvre has never to me seemed as beautiful as it did today…What a difference it makes for me to mourn Maman surrounded by all these things which she created and which embody herself” (quoted in J. Manet, Growing up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet, London, 1987, p. 90).
Since then, Julie rêveuse has appeared in nearly every major exhibition devoted to the artist in the twentieth century—from the Morisot retrospective at the Salon d’Automne (1907) to the traveling exhibition Berthe Morisot, Impressionist (1987-1988), which introduced Morisot’s work to broad American audiences for the first time.
The bold, evocative brushwork that defines Morisot’s artistic legacy is on full display in Julie rêveuse. Her liberal strokes of paint—often applied to unprimed canvases—became increasingly vigorous and confident over the course of her career. Yet Julie rêveuse possesses a classical composition—Julie assumes the traditional posture of melancholy—and a corporeal solidity that reveals Morisot’s early training, copying Old Master paintings at the Louvre.
Julie rêveuse also demonstrates Morisot’s enduring interest in modern fashion. Throughout her career, the artist painted the material effects of bourgeoises parisiennes: dresses, hats, gloves, scarves and jewelry. In the present work, the artist’s daughter is informally dressed in a white chemise gown with full sleeves, cinched at the waist with a marigold ribbon. This dress suggests the fresh, breezy costume of spring or summer. Julie’s long, thick hair, comprised of chestnut, copper and vermillion, is similarly arranged in a youthful, casual style: loosely tied back at the crown, with the rest of her wavy locks tumbling down her shoulders.
Morisot, who specialized in the representation of Parisian women, was herself one of just a handful of women artists to exhibit with the Impressionists during their eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. During this period, contemporary critics identified Morisot’s painting style as the most daring of her contemporaries; as Paul Mantz wrote, “The truth is that if there is a single Impressionist in the group…it is Berthe Morisot…[Her painting] has all the freshness of improvisation” (quoted in Berthe Morisot, exh. cat., The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2018, p. 89). Others praised the perceived femininity of her painterly touch: “Berthe Morisot is French in her refinement, her elegance, her joyfulness, her lightheartedness…she grinds petals of flowers on her palette, in order to then spread them out onto the canvas using spirited brushstrokes, that are blown and thrown onto the surface slightly randomly” (C. Ephrussi, “Exposition des artistes indépendants,” in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1 May 1880, pp. 485-488 quoted in ibid., p. 93).
At the age of thirty-seven and at the height of her career, Morisot gave birth to Julie on 14 November 1878. Morisot abstained from the fourth exhibition of 1879, but she submitted her work to every other Impressionist installation—making her one of the most frequent and productive members of that historic, avant-garde experiment. Indeed, rather than hindering her career, motherhood seems to have provided Morisot with ample new inspiration for her art. As art historian Anne Higonnet wrote, “Morisot worked while she raised Julie. Not only did she use her child frequently as her model, but she used painting as a form of pedagogy, and as soon as Julie was old enough, mother and daughter painted side by side” (Berthe Morisot, Los Angeles, 1994, p. 190).
Together with her husband Eugène—brother of the painter, Edouard Manet—Morisot raised Julie in their home near the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. There, Morisot worked outdoors in their family garden or salon. After the death of her husband in 1892, however, she rented another apartment on the rue Weber to serve as a dedicated studio. In this new working space, Morisot experienced a burst of productivity; she created dozens of new expressive, brightly colored canvases that define this final phase of her career, including Julie rêveuse.
Morisot died in 1895, the year after she painted this intimate portrait of her beloved daughter. Julie rêveuse was included in a posthumous exhibition staged at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1896, organized by Julie with several of Morisot’s Impressionist colleagues: Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with a catalogue introduction written by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Of this exhibition, Julie wrote in her diary, “It’s a paradise, with feminine delicacy combined with the power of the drawing. Ah, Maman, what talent! Your oeuvre has never to me seemed as beautiful as it did today…What a difference it makes for me to mourn Maman surrounded by all these things which she created and which embody herself” (quoted in J. Manet, Growing up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet, London, 1987, p. 90).
Since then, Julie rêveuse has appeared in nearly every major exhibition devoted to the artist in the twentieth century—from the Morisot retrospective at the Salon d’Automne (1907) to the traveling exhibition Berthe Morisot, Impressionist (1987-1988), which introduced Morisot’s work to broad American audiences for the first time.