In the Dining Room

Painted in 1886 and now in the National Gallery of Art, this canvas depicting a woman in a dining room — identifiable by the table, chairs, and domestic paraphernalia — is one of Morisot's most telling explorations of middle-class domestic space. The dining room as a setting implies both the private family sphere and the social performance of bourgeois hospitality. Morisot observes the woman alone in this social space, between its public and private functions, with characteristic psychological insight.

The domestic setting is rendered with economical strokes that suggest the room's furnishings without detailed description. The woman's figure is painted with Morisot's characteristic touch — loose but purposeful, the strokes varying in direction and weight to capture the fabric of her dress and the quality of interior light.