Eugène Manet à l'île de Wight

Late in 1874 Berthe Morisot married Eugène Manet, the younger brother of the painter Édouard Manet, and the following summer the couple crossed to England for their honeymoon. They stayed at Cowes, a sailing town on the Isle of Wight, and it was there she painted her new husband for the first time. Eugène sits at the window of their rented cottage, half turned, looking out past the curtain rail at women passing and boats in the harbour. It is a domestic, offhand moment, caught in quick loose strokes. Morisot was by then a full member of the Impressionist circle, one of the very few women exhibiting with them, and here she turns the group's taste for scenes of modern leisure onto her own marriage.