Le Berceau (The Cradle)

Berthe Morisot

Oil on canvas

Musée d'Orsay

Le Berceau (The Cradle) depicts Morisot's sister Edma watching tenderly over her sleeping infant daughter, Blanche, whose cradle is veiled by a delicate net curtain. Executed in oil on canvas in Paris in 1872, the composition employs a subtle diagonal — formed by the mirrored gestures of mother and child — to convey an atmosphere of quiet intimacy and protective love, hallmarks of Morisot's fluid, Impressionist brushwork. Morisot was among the leading figures of French Impressionism and one of its rare prominent women, bringing to the movement a distinctive focus on the domestic and emotional lives of contemporary women. The painting stands as the first treatment of motherhood in her oeuvre, a theme that would recur throughout her career.