Bergère couchée

Berthe Morisot painted this in the summer of 1891, at a rented country house at Mezy on the Seine, about 40 kilometres from Paris. The girl stretched on her stomach in the grass under a pear tree, a little goat beside her, is Gabrielle Dufour, a friend of the painter's daughter Julie. Morisot dresses the scene as a pastoral idyll, but the handling is loose and quick, the paint left open and sketchy in her late manner. She had only a few years left to live. This particular version was the one she chose to show in 1892 at the gallery of Boussod and Valadon, in the single solo exhibition of her work held during her lifetime.