Young Girl with Hat

Berthe Morisot · 1892

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

55.9 × 47 cm (22 × 18 1/2 in.); Framed: 77.1 × 68.6 × 8.3 cm (30 3/8 × 27 × 3 1/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Young Girl with Hat is one of Berthe Morisot's most quietly luminous portraits — a study in soft focus and natural light that captures a fleeting moment with extraordinary tenderness. Morisot was a central figure in the Impressionist movement and the only woman to exhibit in nearly every one of its landmark shows. Her portraits of women and children are distinguished by a loose, confident brushwork that feels almost like a sketch brought to life — intimate rather than formal, observed rather than posed. In this 1892 work, the girl's hat and the diffused background dissolve into each other in the way only Morisot could manage, making the sitter feel present rather than painted. Morisot was the granddaughter of the Rococo painter Fragonard, a lineage that seems visible in her lightness of touch and her instinct for depicting youth and grace without sentimentality. This hand-painted oil reproduction, executed on canvas by a skilled artist working directly from the original held at the Art Institute of Chicago, preserves the delicate tonal range and gestural energy that make Morisot's portraits so enduringly affecting.