Berthe Morisot

Girl on a Divan

c.1885

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On loan

Dulwich Picture Gallery (London, UK): Berthe Morisot: Impressionism and the Eighteenth Century

Artist: Berthe Morisot 1841–1895
Original title: Jeune femme au divan
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 610 × 502 mm
frame: 805 × 702 × 100 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by the Hon. Mrs A.E. Pleydell-Bouverie through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1968
Reference: T01079

Catalogue entry

Berthe Morisot 1841-1895

T01079 Jeune Femme au Divan (Girl on a Divan) c.1885

Stamped 'Berthe Morisot' b.r.
Oil on canvas, 24 x 19 3/4 (61 x 50)
Bequeathed by the Hon. Mrs A.E. Pleydell-Bouverie through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1968
Prov: Mme Ernest Rouart, Paris; with Ambroise Vollard, Paris; Guy Weil, Paris; with Arthur Tooth and Sons, London; the Hon. Mrs A.E. Pleydell-Bouverie, London, 1952
Exh: Paris-Londres, Arthur Tooth and Sons, London, April-May 1952 (2, repr.) as 'Le Canapé Vert' c.1880; The Pleydell-Bouverie Collection, Tate Gallery, January-April 1954 (29, repr.); Berthe Morisot, Wildenstein Gallery, London, January-February 1961 (49, repr.) as 'Le Canapé Vert: Jeune Femme au Divan' 1885
Lit: Marie-Louise Bataille and Georges Wildenstein, Berthe Morisot (Paris 1961), No.187, p.35, repr. fig.209 as 'Jeune Femme au Divan' and dated 1885

The artist's grandson Denis Rouart writes (9 October 1969): 'This painting was sold by my mother direct to Vollard a long time ago, possibly during the 1914-18 war, possibly before, or shortly after. The studio stamp was put on it by my mother herself.

'The woman represented is certainly a model, if not a professional one, at least one who sat now and then for payment. She is not a relation or a friend. However, my mother did not know her name.

'As for the date, the handling of paint is characteristic of the period 1882 to 1888 and especially 1883-7. It is the same as that of the two portraits of Paule Gobillard dated by my mother one in 1884 and the other in 1887 (nos.159 and 209 in the Wildenstein catalogue) and if my mother assigned it to 1885 it was because she had some reasons either documentary or of personal judgement to place it then. There is in any case no sound reason for changing the date. The picture must certainly be later than 1880.'

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.542, reproduced p.542