Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets

Painted in 1872, this portrait captures Berthe Morisot, a gifted painter and a driving force behind the Impressionist movement. She sits dressed head to toe in black, a feathered hat perched on her dark hair, meeting your eyes with a direct and searching gaze. Édouard Manet painted her many times, but this is the version people remember best. His brushwork here is loose and self assured, and the sharp play between her inky clothing and the soft gray background shows exactly why he was seen as a bridge between old traditions and the fresh painting styles taking hold in Paris.

The friendship between the two artists ran deep. Morisot and Manet were close companions and fellow painters, and she went on to marry his younger brother Eugène. Tucked into all that black is a tiny bunch of violets, easy to miss, which gives the painting its name. Rather than a stiff, posed likeness of the sort earlier generations favored, Manet gave us someone who feels present and modern. Morisot is said to have adored the result, and the work stands as a lasting tribute to a woman who refused to remain simply a model and made her own name as a serious artist.