The Sisters

1869

Berthe Morisot

Painter, French, 1841 - 1895

Shown from the lap up, two women with pale skin and dark hair pulled up and back, wearing white dresses with baby-blue polka dots, sit on a couch in this horizontal portrait painting. Both women have straight, dark brows, delicate noses, smooth skin, and their small, rose-pink mouths are closed. Wispy bangs brush their foreheads, and their hair is piled high with long ringlets falling down their backs. Both wear black ribbons like chokers around their necks. Their dresses have high necks with ruffles along the necklines, ruffles at the wrists, and are gathered under the bust. They sit angled in toward each other. The woman on our left has black hair, and she looks down and to our right with dark eyes. She wears a gold ring with a dark, oval stone on one hand resting in her lap. The other woman has chestnut-brown hair and looks down and off to our left with ice-blue eyes. She holds an open fan in her hands in her lap. The fabric on the couch has vertical white and lilac-purple stripes, and is overlaid with a pattern of pink flowers and green leaves. A framed picture hanging on the bone-white wall behind the women shows an arched painting against a sky-blue background. A few spiky leaves from a houseplant are cut off by the left edge of the painting. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, especially in the couch and background. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “Berthe Morisot.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 89

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs

  • Dimensions

    overall: 52.1 × 81.3 cm (20 1/2 × 32 in.)
    framed: 69.85 × 99.7 × 8.89 cm (27 1/2 × 39 1/4 × 3 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.9.2

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Bernheim-Jeune, Paris); sold 15 June 1910 to (Durand-Ruel, Paris); sold 14 November 1912 to (Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York).[1] Mrs. Charles Stewart Carstairs [née Elizabeth Stebbins, d. 1949], Lockport, New York, and Paris;[2] bequest 1952 to NGA.
[1] According to memoranda dated 4 December 1986 in NGA curatorial files.
[2] Elizabeth Stebbins was the second wife of Charles S. Carstairs [1865-1928], whose son from his first marriage was Carroll Carstairs [d. 1948]. Mrs. Carstairs' maiden name is provided in a letter of 13 February 1995 from Dr. Lorne Campbell, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1912

  • Exposition centennale de l'art français. Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1912

1919

  • Possibly Cent Oeuvres de Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1919, no. 61, as Les Deux soeurs.

1976

  • Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University Art Museum, University of Texas, Austin; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; Brooklyn Museum, 1976-1977, no. 84, repro.

1980

  • Fifty Years of French Painting: The Emergence of Modern Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, 1980

1986

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1986, no. 20, repro.

1987

  • Berthe Morisot, Inpressionist, National Gallery of Art; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA, 1987-1988

1990

  • Französische Impressionisten und ihre Wegbereiter aus der National Gallery of Art, Washington und dem Cincinnati Art Museum, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1990, no. 53, repro.

1992

  • From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Greece, Athens, 1992-1993, no. 57, repro.

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 162-163, color repro.

1999

  • Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1999, no. 26, repro.

  • Around Impressionism: French Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1999, no cat.

2002

  • Berthe Morisot, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille; Fondation Pierre Gianadda Martigny, Switzerland, 2002, no. 7, repro.

2006

  • Women in Impressionism: from Mythical Feminine to Modern Woman., Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 2006-2007, no. 66, repro.

2008

  • Woman Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Fine Arts Museusm of San Francisco, 2008, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 35, repro.

2012

  • Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, 2012-2013, no. 10, repro.

2017

  • Women Artists in Paris: 1850-1900, Denver Art Museum; The Speed Art Museum, Louisville; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 2017-2018, pl. 30

2018

  • Berthe Morisot: Woman Impressionist, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec City; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; Dallas Museum of Art; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2018-2019 (shown only in Dallas and Paris), no. 19 (French catalogue); no. 18 (English catalogue), repro.

Bibliography

1953

  • "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums: January - March 1953." Art Quarterly 16 (Autumn 1953): 252.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 94.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 83, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 246, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 459, no. 660, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 285, repro.

1990

  • Französische Impressionisten und ihre Wegbereiter aus der National Gallery of Art, Washington und dem Cincinnati Art Museum. Exh. cat. Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1990: no. 53, repro.

Inscriptions

upper right: Berthe Morisot

Wikidata ID

Q20188724

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