Der Käfig

Around 1880 Morisot, her brother-in-law Edouard Manet, and their younger colleague Eva Gonzales had begun painting on raw, unprimed canvas, letting the coarse weave drink the paint and drag the strokes. You can see what that did here, five years on. Working in little more than brown, white and green, she sets a wire birdcage beside a bowl of flowers against a background that dissolves into rough, watery marks. It reads almost like a sketch left deliberately open. The next year, 1886, the Impressionists held the last of their eight group shows, and Morisot had taken part in seven of them.