Woman in a Garden

Berthe Morisot · 1882–83

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

123 × 94 cm (48 1/2 × 37 in.); Framed: 153.7 × 123.9 × 12.1 cm (60 1/2 × 48 3/4 × 4 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Berthe Morisot's *Woman in a Garden* is a study in light and movement, its dappled greens and soft whites dissolving into one another with the ease of a summer afternoon. Morisot was a founding member of the Impressionist circle and the only woman to exhibit in the landmark 1874 show that gave the movement its name. Where many of her contemporaries painted the streets and cafés of modern Paris, Morisot returned again and again to private, intimate spaces — gardens, nurseries, domestic interiors — rendering them with a brushwork so loose and instinctive that her canvases feel caught rather than composed. In *Woman in a Garden*, that technique is at its most confident: figure and setting seem to breathe the same air, neither fully resolved, both entirely convincing. Morisot studied under Camille Corot in the 1860s, and his influence on her handling of foliage and tone remained visible throughout her career, even as her work grew increasingly bold and personal. This hand-painted oil reproduction follows the original canvas stroke for stroke, preserving the textural energy that separates Morisot's work from the flat reproductions you find in print — the kind of fidelity that only comes from another painter standing in front of the same challenge she faced.