The Basket Chair
Berthe Morisot·1882
Historical Context
Painted in 1882 and now in the Audrey Jones Beck Building of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this canvas depicts a woman in a characteristic Impressionist interior setting — a basket chair suggesting summer informality and domestic ease. Morisot's domestic interiors during the early 1880s combine figure painting with interior observation, the chair, dress, and setting equally objects of painterly attention. The informal basket chair gives the scene a summer leisure quality distinct from grander interior subjects.
Technical Analysis
The basket chair's woven texture is indicated with short, curving strokes in warm ochres and browns, contrasting with the softer handling of the figure's clothing. Morisot builds the interior's light through tonal gradation from warmer lit areas to cooler shadows, maintaining overall luminosity throughout the composition.
