| Artist Name | Berthe Morisot (Bourges 1841 - 1895 Paris) |
|---|---|
| Title | Profile Portrait of Paule Gobillard |
| Date of Artwork | 1886 |
| Medium | Pastel on faded blue laid paper mounted on paperboard |
| Size | Gift of Jane Crowley Koven in memory of her daughter Constance Henriette Koven Stransky, class of 1960, 2004.31, Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. |
Further Information
French Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot masked a portrait of her niece Paule Gobillard (1867-1946) with strokes of brilliant white pastel, insinuating a shower of dazzling outdoors light. In the mid-nineteenth century, French girls and young women of the upper classes learned how to draw through a private drawing master. Joseph-Benoît Guichard (1806-1880) taught the young Morisot and cautioned her mother that she and her sister would become "painters, not minor amateur talents. Do you really understand what that means? In the world of the grande bourgeoisie in which you move, it would be a revolution, I would even say a catastrophe."