In the fall of 1892, Berthe Morisot visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Tours with her daughter Julie. She copies the work Apollo revealing her divinity to the shepherdess Issé by François Boucher, an artist she revered and whom she had already copied . She is then fifty years old . The oil on canvas, sold at Freeman's in Philadelphia on February 18, was acquired by the Marmottan-Monet museum for $ 230,000 (about 212,000 euros).
Like the first copy, Berthe Morisot focuses her attention on a corner of the painting, amplifying the delicate embrace of a pair of voluptuous nymphs near a forest stream. The canvas brings back to light an 18th century technique, the pochade, where you quickly capture the colors and the atmosphere of a scene.
François Boucher's painting
Berthe Morisot focused on the nymphs located to the left of François Boucher's painting. © Bridgeman Images / Leemage
Partly funded by the Society of Friends of the Marmottan Museum, the painting enriches the largest collection of this high impressionist figure made up of 83 works, including 25 paintings, and more than sixty watercolors, pastels and drawings. .
Pupil of Corot, muse of Manet (whom the painter notably represented in his famous canvas Le Balcon ), Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) established herself as the first impressionist woman. She will be alongside Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro one of the main members of the nucleus of artists.
Her work, long put in the rear of the movement because she was a woman, has been regularly exhibited for several years. Striving to finally give it the place it deserves, the Musée d'Orsay devoted a major monograph to it last June, bringing together more than 70 oils on canvas.
Also read: Musée d'Orsay: Berthe Morisot "fa presto"
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