Woman Lying on a Sofa (Jeanne-Marie)

Berthe Morisot

Musée Marmottan Monet

This intimate interior scene depicts a woman named Jeanne-Marie reclining on a sofa, rendered in the loose, luminous brushwork characteristic of Berthe Morisot's Impressionist practice. Morisot (1841–1895) was a founding member of the French Impressionist movement and the only woman to exhibit in the group's inaugural 1874 exhibition; she participated in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions throughout her career. Her paintings consistently explored the private, domestic lives of women through an opalescent palette and spirited, sketch-like handling of paint that distinguished her from her male contemporaries. Works such as this, focusing on a named female sitter in a bourgeois interior, exemplify Morisot's sustained interest in capturing the quiet rhythms of feminine everyday life with immediacy and psychological intimacy.