Le Corsage Noir

Painted in 1878 and now in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, this canvas showing a woman in a black bodice — the corsage noir of the French title — is a direct and confident figure study in which the dark garment provides a strong tonal anchor for the composition. Morisot's portraits of women in dark clothing during the late 1870s demonstrate her ability to handle the particular challenges of depicting dark forms in varying lights without losing the figure's spatial presence.

The black bodice creates a strong tonal mass that grounds the composition, its darkness setting off the warm flesh tones of the face and neck above and the lighter skirt below. Morisot renders the dark fabric with subtle tonal variations — deep purples and warm blacks — that prevent it from becoming a flat void.