The Mother and Sister of the Artist - Berthe Morisot (1869/1870)

Berthe Morisot

Oil on canvas

National Gallery of Art

This intimate double portrait depicts Berthe Morisot's mother, Marie-Joséphine, seated in a dark dress against a softly lit interior, and her sister Edma Pontillon, shown in a loose white morning robe that discreetly conceals her pregnancy, posed near a window. Painted in oil on canvas during the winter of 1869–1870, the composition balances contrasting spaces—Edma bathed in cool window light while the mother recedes into shadow—in a manner characteristic of early French Impressionism. Morisot, one of the founding members of the Impressionist group, was among the most prominent women artists of nineteenth-century France, celebrated for her handling of light, domestic subject matter, and painterly spontaneity. The work was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1870 and stands as one of Morisot's largest and most ambitious canvases.