Boats on the River Seine

Morisot painted the Seine and its river traffic on multiple occasions, and this 1879 canvas in Cologne's Wallraf-Richartz Museum reflects her mature Impressionist approach at its most confident. The Seine offered endless variation in light, reflection, and atmospheric condition, and she was drawn repeatedly to its shifting surface. This work likely dates from a visit to one of the riverside towns west of Paris — Bougival, Chatou, or a similar location where the Impressionists gathered to paint the leisure culture developing along the river.

Water is rendered through broadly horizontal strokes of broken colour conveying movement and reflection without becoming calligraphic. Boat hulls are indicated with minimal detail — darker masses against the lighter water. The sky is handled with swift, thinly loaded strokes of pale grey and white.