The Mother and Sister of the Artist

Painted in 1869, this double portrait of Morisot's mother Marie-Joséphine and her sister Edma was exhibited at the Salon of 1870 to critical admiration. Edma, who had been Berthe's closest painting companion, had recently married and given up her career — a sacrifice that haunted Berthe throughout her life. The painting captures a quiet domestic moment of shared female presence, the two women together yet each absorbed in her own inner world. It is one of Morisot's masterpieces and a key work in the National Gallery of Art's Impressionist collection.

Morisot structures the composition with Edma's dark figure occupying the foreground and her mother's reading form receding behind. A cool, restrained palette of dark greens, creams, and blacks unifies the scene. The handling is tighter here than in later work, showing Morisot still working within Corot and Manet's influence.