A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois

This canvas shows a woman seated on a park bench along the Avenue du Bois — the grand promenade running along the western edge of the Bois de Boulogne. The fashionable Avenue du Bois (now Avenue Foch) was a characteristic Impressionist subject — modern bourgeois leisure in Paris's newly redesigned urban landscape, where the upper classes came to promenade, ride, and be seen. Whether the work date is accurate or reflects a catalogue error, the subject and handling are characteristic of Morisot's sustained interest in women occupying outdoor public spaces in the modern city, observed with the attentive sympathy of an insider.

Morisot's characteristic open, gestural brushwork animates the figure and the park setting around her. The dappled outdoor light is rendered through broken touches of warm and cool colour. The bench and the tree-lined avenue are loosely but recognizably indicated. The figure's posture is relaxed and unposed, as in an unguarded observation.