1890
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Young Saint John is a 1890 by Berthe Morisot, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A young boy in a red robe holds a thin wooden cross. His face is soft, almost blurred, like he’s moving. Morisot sketched this in a rented attic while staying in a small French village. The boy was a local kid—just posing, not acting holy. She used quick, light strokes, leaving parts unfinished. It feels more like a moment than a saint’s portrait. If you like how she keeps things loose and real, look up *sfumato*.
In the spring of 1890 Berthe Morisot and her husband, Eugène Manet, rented a house with a garden overlooking the Seine River in the rural French town of Mézy. Morisot worked in the attic studio while the pair was there. A young boy from the village served as the model for this pastel, one of several studies for a full-length painting of Saint John the Baptist with his cross. In this drawing, Morisot developed the loose and sketchy marks that would characterize her final canvas.
This pastel's first owner was Berthe Morisot's daughter, Julie Manet, and her husband Ernest Rouart.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (French: ; 14 January 1841 – 2 March 1895) was a French painter, printmaker and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.
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