Portrait of Pauline Ono in morning dress

Millet's portrait of Pauline Ono in morning dress, painted in 1843, depicts his first wife in a domestic setting shortly before their marriage. Pauline-Virginie Ono was a young woman from Cherbourg whom Millet had known since his early years there, and their marriage in 1841 produced one child before Pauline died of tuberculosis in 1844, the year after this portrait was painted. The morning dress setting—suggesting the intimacy of private domestic life rather than the formality of a commissioned portrait—gives the work an affecting quality that Millet's later portraits of his second wife and children amplify. The painting documents both Millet's technical development in the early 1840s and the personal tragedy that shaped his subsequent move to Paris and ultimately to Barbizon.

The intimate portrait captures Pauline with soft, warm tones and gentle modeling that convey both her physical delicacy and Millet's affection. The morning dress is rendered with careful attention to fabric texture, creating an image of domestic intimacy.