Artwork
The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet
The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist Berthe Morisot. It dates from 1890 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
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About this work
Subject & Meaning
Berthe Morisot's 1890 oil on canvas portrays her daughter, Julie Manet, in an intimate domestic portrait.
Berthe Morisot's 1890 oil on canvas portrays her daughter, Julie Manet, in an intimate domestic portrait. The composition centers on Julie, the artist's only child, holding a parakeet, a motif that situates the work within a long European tradition of depicting young women with small companion animals. Such pairings typically signaled tenderness, refinement, and the protected nature of bourgeois female life, while the bird itself could carry associations with delicacy and quiet sociability.
By choosing her daughter as the subject, Morisot fused the conventions of the portrait genre with a deeply personal record of motherhood, presenting Julie not as a formal sitter but as a child at ease within the family sphere. The painting thus operates simultaneously as a likeness of Julie Manet and as a meditation on maternal affection, domestic intimacy, and the cultivated gentility associated with late nineteenth-century French household life.
Technique & Style
The portrait was painted in 1890 in oil on canvas and measures approximately 65.6 by 52.1 centimetres. It depicts Julie Manet, the artist's daughter, in a close, shoulder‑level composition that emphasizes her delicate features through a restrained palette and soft tonal modeling. The intimate format and gentle handling are characteristic of Morisot's late portraits of her family.
History & Provenance
Painted by Berthe Morisot in 1890, The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet depicts her daughter Julie Manet. The work remained with the sitter, later Madame Ernest Rouart (1879–1966), in Paris at least through 1929, when a label on the reverse of the canvas records her loan of the painting to an exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune. It subsequently passed through Galerie Jacques Dubourg in Paris, which sold it on 18 July 1952 to the American collector Chester Dale (1883–1962) of New York.
Upon Dale's death, the work entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1963 as part of his bequest, where it has remained in the collection.
Context
The Artist’s Daughter with a Parakeet (1890) is an oil‑on‑canvas portrait by Berthe Morisot that shows her daughter Julie Manet holding a parakeet. The painting remained in the Manet‑Rouart family at least until 1929, when it was lent to a Bernheim‑Jeune exhibition in Paris, and was later sold to Chester Dale before being bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art in 1963. Its subject, a domestic interior with a child, exemplifies Morisot’s late focus on intimate family scenes and contributes to the Impressionist emphasis on everyday moments.
The work is catalogued in the National Gallery of Art’s collection and has been the subject of scholarly attention as a representative example of Morisot’s portraiture within the broader Impressionist movement.
Legacy
The later influence of The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet is tied to its inclusion in major collections and exhibitions that have shaped Morisot scholarship. The work remained in the sitter's family until at least 1929, when it was lent to a Bernheim‑Jeune exhibition in Paris, evidencing its continued visibility. In 1952 it passed to Chester Dale and was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it remains on public view.
Its presence in the museum’s collection reinforces Morisot’s reputation as a leading portraitist and highlights the significance of her depictions of the Manet family.
Overview
Berthe Morisot, a prominent French Impressionist, created The Artist's Daughter with a Parakeet in 1890. This oil on canvas painting portrays her daughter, Julie Manet, capturing a moment of domestic life. The work exemplifies Morisot's characteristic focus on intimate, everyday subjects and her distinctive approach to light and color within the Impressionist movement.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was a French painter, printmaker and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.
