Boats on the River Seine

In April 1879 the Impressionists opened their fourth group show in Paris without Berthe Morisot. Her daughter Julie had been born five months earlier, and it was the only one of the group's eight exhibitions she did not take part in. The museum dates this small river scene to 1879 or 1880. The canvas is a narrow strip, about twice as wide as it is tall. A bridge runs as a dark line across the top, with a row of pale houses on the far bank. Morisot gives most of the space to the water and to two moored boats, both cut off by the edges of the canvas, with a small white sail beyond them. The picture belongs to the Fondation Corboud, the collection of the Swiss-born collector Gérard Corboud, on permanent loan to the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne.