1891. Portrait of a sitting young lady in a white dress. In the background a pillar with sculpture. Signature stamp bottom right: Berht Morisot. Oil on canvas. 65 x 54cm. Framed.

Provenance:
Ambroise Vollard, Paris;
Collection Lopez;
Auction Christie's, London, December 4, 1979, Lot 15;
Gallery H. Odermatt-Cazeau, Paris;
Auction Enghien, March 27, 1990, Lot 4 ;
Auction Sotheby's, London, December 4, 1990, Lot 7;
Mme. Monique Lafond, Paris;
Auction Sotheby's, London, May 9, 2001, Lot 345;
Private collector Switzerland.

Exhibitions:
Paris, Gallery H. Oderdmatt-Cazeau: Berthe Morisot. Number 7;
Tokio, Isetan Museum of Art: Les Femmes Impressionistes, 1995. Number 20;
Lodève, Musée de Lodève : Berthe Morisot. Regards pluriels, 2006. Number 12, depicted in cataloge p.157.

Literature:
Bataille, Marie-Louise und Georges Wildenstein: Berthe Morisot. Catalogue des peintures,
pastels et aquarelles, Paris 1961, Number 289, Fig. 302 ;
Clairet, Alain, Delphine Montalant und Yves Rouart : Berhe Morisot. Catalogue raisonné de
l'ouvre peint, Paris 1997, Number 293, p. 258.

Berthe Morisot was married with Eugène Manet, the brother of the painter Édouard Manet,
with whom she cherished a life-long friendship. As member of the haute
bourgeoisie in Paris during the late 19th c., she mainly worked in her own private
enviroment. Here she was renowned as portrait painter, especially for her atmospheric portraits of young ladies and children. The works were mostly created in her parlour-like studio, which the exhibition catalogue describes as follows: Berthe worked at
home, in her lounge which served her as a studio. Since it was oriented fully to the south, light was evened by cream-colour blinds, there was no dark corner. This is the place where she had her models sit for her, or rather, where she seemed to capture them in fleeting attitudes, so successful was she in the snapshot rendering of them (...)
One can therefore presume that the work at hand, depicting a dreamily gazing lady with pinned-up hair and yellow gloves, likewise originated here. Just as the blue sofa, also in other works this one subsumable object can be found in the background. The white sculpture positioned on the high pillar, of wich only the legs are in the pictorial view, is likely to be the same sculpture that can be found on the portrait of Paule Gobillard from 1886 in the Musée Marmottan, Paris.

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