At the Edge of the Forest (Edma and Jeanne)

This 1872 canvas shows Morisot's sister Edma Pontillon — who had given up painting herself upon marriage — with her daughter Jeanne at the edge of a forest. Edma appears repeatedly in Morisot's early work and their relationship was one of exceptional closeness. Edma's abandonment of painting to become a wife and mother was a loss Berthe felt keenly, and the paintings of Edma with her child may be read as both celebrations of maternity and meditations on the divergent paths available to women. The forest edge provides a boundary between the cultivated and the wild that resonates with Morisot's interest in liminal domestic and natural spaces.

The 1872 style shows Morisot working in a relatively careful technique compared to her mature looseness — the figures more precisely described, the landscape more deliberately painted. The forest edge creates a dark backdrop that sets off the lighter figures. The handling already shows the freshness and atmospheric sensitivity that would define her mature work.