Artwork · 19th century · Berthe Morisot

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The Pink Dress (Albertie-Marguerite Carré, later Madame Ferdinand-Henri Himmes, 1854–1935)

Berthe Morisotca. 1870Oil on canvas54.6 × 67.3 cm

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At a glance

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A young woman in a pink dress sits with one arm draped over a gray sofa and looks straight at us.
The French Impressionist Berthe Morisot painted her around 1870, and the sitter is thought to be her friend Marguerite Carré.
It is one of the few early paintings by Morisot that survive, and the quick brushwork of the dress is right there on the surface.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on her face. A hint of a smile plays at the corners of her closed lips, and her gray-blue eyes meet ours. Around her neck is a black ribbon with a small gold ornament hanging below it. A white collar peeks up above the ribbon.
Get a close look at the dress across her chest. Pink, white, and pale lavender are piled on in short, rounded strokes. Up close, none of the ruffles is actually drawn out. Brush marks alone make you see the light, fluttering frills.
Zoom in on her right hand in her lap. Her fingers rest lightly on the dress, and a gold ring gleams on one of them. The white cuff gets its rounded shape from a few strokes of gray shadow.
Look at the cushion on the right. Gold paint is dabbed across its pale gray surface as if it had been scattered there. Her left hand hangs loosely over it, with a ring set with a blue stone on one finger. The relaxed hand makes her look at ease.
Zoom in on the flowerpot on the table behind her at the left. Green leaves and yellow shapes like birds decorate its pink sides. Above it, red flowers dot the dark leaves. To the left of the pot, something spread open like a fan leans at an angle.

When it was painted

Around 1870, Morisot was about twenty-nine. She lived and painted in her parents' home in Passy, a fashionable neighborhood on the west side of Paris. Marguerite Carré, thought to be the woman in this picture, was a friend who also lived with her parents in Passy, at the Villa Fodor.

Someone watched this painting being made. It was Jacques-Émile Blanche, who later became a well-known portrait painter. Born in 1861, he was only a child at the time. Blanche remembered that Morisot kept changing her mind and would paint over what she had done once a session was over.

Morisot's life was shifting fast in these years. In 1868 she met Édouard Manet at the Louvre, and she posed for his painting The Balcony. In 1869 her sister Edma, who had trained alongside her, married and gave up painting. When the Prussian army laid siege to Paris in 1870, Morisot stayed in the city.

A few years later, in 1874, Morisot showed her work in the first Impressionist exhibition, and that same year she married Manet's brother Eugène. Marguerite later became Madame Ferdinand-Henri Himmes, and she died in 1935.

The painting came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the collection left by the American collector Walter H. Annenberg. Look again at the brushstrokes of the dress. After all that painting over and starting again, what remains is this light, easy pink.

The painter

Berthe Morisot

1841–1895

All paintings by Berthe Morisot →

More by the same painter

Woman at Her Toilette1875–80

Questions to think about

Look for itWhat color is the ring on each of her hands?
Why?Why do you think Morisot left the ruffles of the dress as quick brushstrokes instead of painting each one?
What about you?Blanche remembered Morisot as someone who kept changing her mind. How different is the way we look at working women today from the way people looked at women painters back then?

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