Lot Essay
In 1874 Morisot married Eugene Manet, a brother of Edouard Manet whom she had met at the Louvre in 1868 through Fantin-Latour. Four years later she gave birth to their only child, a daughter Julie Manet. The challenges of the first year of motherhood limited the time she could dedicate to her oil painting as she explained to her sister, "I have little time, and then I have my days of melancholy, my black days when I am afraid to take up a pen for fear of being dull" (D. Rouart, Berthe Morisot Correspondence, London, 1987, p. 115). She turned to watercolor which allowed for a flexible rapid technique and began to apply this method of painting to her work in oil. Painted shortly before the fourth Impressionist exhibition, Behind the Blinds is one of several important works which she produced in 1879. According to Alain Clarret and Yves Rouart she began to introduce changes in her work this year and the touches became broader and tangled in apparent chaos, expressing, in fact, an extreme freedom (A. Clairet and Y. Rouart, "preface", Berthe Morisot, London, 1957, p. 13).
Morisot was at her prime when she painted Behind the Blinds. At the Third Exhibition of the Impressionist Group, her work was singled out by the critic Paul Mantz who wrote: "The truth is there is only one Impressionist in the group at the rue Le Peletier: Mademoiselle Berthe Morisot. We have already praised her, we must praise her again...When she plays with the whole range of light colors, she finds extremely refined greys and pinks of the most delicate paleness. Mademoiselle Morisot also has moments of audacity...(her work) has all the crispness of improvisation. Here we see what it means when an impression is captured by an honest eye and rendered by a skilled hand" (P. Mantz, Le Temps, 22 April 1877).
The present work is closely related to Jeune Femme assise with the balcony and Venetian blinds probably corresponding to her apartment on avenue Victor Hugo. Both paintings seem to recall Sir John Everett Millais' Hearts are Trump (1872, Tate Gallery, London), exhibited at the Paris World's Fair the previous year. According to Charles Stuckey Behind the Blinds "is a remarkable variation on her own Woman at her Toilette (1877, location unknown), the dressing-room subject done a few years earlier, in which the model wears the same costume and sits on the same black chair" (C. F. Stuckey, "Berthe Morisot", Berthe Morisot Impressionist, exh. cat., New York, 1987, p. 78). Morisot shared Monet's and Sisley's preoccupation with the handling of light and, in particular, the effect of light on white. This effect is supremely displayed in Behind the Blinds as well as in two other works from the same year: Jeune Femme au Bal (Muse d'Orsay, Paris) and Jour d'Et (Tate Gallery, London). The composition of this painting is also daring. In the placement of the model she appears to be experimenting with the problems of posing and the ambiguity of the limited view of the cityscape to set this work apart from the traditional format of the genre interior. Whereas most of Morisot's pictures from this period posed the model facing forward, in Behind the Blinds she presents a more challenging profile view. She places a large cushion against the railing and blinds as a device to push the figure forward and stop our eyes' recession. Moreover, Stuckey comments, "(the model's) pensive demeanor is in fact designed to show with humor the trials of posing" (ibid., pp. 78-80).
Morisot was sometimes overshadowed by the other male members of the Impressionist group. Painting at a time when female artists were rarely promoted, her works remain among the most significant contributions to the Impressionist movement. As Paul Valry observed:
But time, which inevitably dims the effects of surprise and novlety, can only enhance the discreetly exceptional harmonies of works whose value has grown more and more evident to an increasing number of admirers. The qualities which she alone among the Impressionists possessed, and which, besides, are of the rarest in painting, can now be appreciated. They are of a subtlety hard to isolate or define: a painter may be great without them" (P. Valry, Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, 1989, p. 118).
One of the first owners of Behind the Blinds was the Japanese connoisseur and collector Tadamasa Hayashi (1853-1906). His passion for collecting modern French painting began as early as 1881 when he received a drawing by Renouard as gratitude for assistance he had provided M. L. Gonse on Japanese Art. He befriended many of the Impressionists and intended his collection to be shown publicaly in Tokyo to further the exchange between the artists of both countries (T. Hayashi, "preface", Paul Renouard, exh. cat., Paris, Galerie Bodinire, May 1894). The painting was later purchased by Thodore Duret whose family fortune had been made through the production of cognac. He was collector and advocate of the Impressionist cause and his 1878 book Histoire des peintres Impressionistes was the first to detail the leading figures of the movement.
Morisot was at her prime when she painted Behind the Blinds. At the Third Exhibition of the Impressionist Group, her work was singled out by the critic Paul Mantz who wrote: "The truth is there is only one Impressionist in the group at the rue Le Peletier: Mademoiselle Berthe Morisot. We have already praised her, we must praise her again...When she plays with the whole range of light colors, she finds extremely refined greys and pinks of the most delicate paleness. Mademoiselle Morisot also has moments of audacity...(her work) has all the crispness of improvisation. Here we see what it means when an impression is captured by an honest eye and rendered by a skilled hand" (P. Mantz, Le Temps, 22 April 1877).
The present work is closely related to Jeune Femme assise with the balcony and Venetian blinds probably corresponding to her apartment on avenue Victor Hugo. Both paintings seem to recall Sir John Everett Millais' Hearts are Trump (1872, Tate Gallery, London), exhibited at the Paris World's Fair the previous year. According to Charles Stuckey Behind the Blinds "is a remarkable variation on her own Woman at her Toilette (1877, location unknown), the dressing-room subject done a few years earlier, in which the model wears the same costume and sits on the same black chair" (C. F. Stuckey, "Berthe Morisot", Berthe Morisot Impressionist, exh. cat., New York, 1987, p. 78). Morisot shared Monet's and Sisley's preoccupation with the handling of light and, in particular, the effect of light on white. This effect is supremely displayed in Behind the Blinds as well as in two other works from the same year: Jeune Femme au Bal (Muse d'Orsay, Paris) and Jour d'Et (Tate Gallery, London). The composition of this painting is also daring. In the placement of the model she appears to be experimenting with the problems of posing and the ambiguity of the limited view of the cityscape to set this work apart from the traditional format of the genre interior. Whereas most of Morisot's pictures from this period posed the model facing forward, in Behind the Blinds she presents a more challenging profile view. She places a large cushion against the railing and blinds as a device to push the figure forward and stop our eyes' recession. Moreover, Stuckey comments, "(the model's) pensive demeanor is in fact designed to show with humor the trials of posing" (ibid., pp. 78-80).
Morisot was sometimes overshadowed by the other male members of the Impressionist group. Painting at a time when female artists were rarely promoted, her works remain among the most significant contributions to the Impressionist movement. As Paul Valry observed:
But time, which inevitably dims the effects of surprise and novlety, can only enhance the discreetly exceptional harmonies of works whose value has grown more and more evident to an increasing number of admirers. The qualities which she alone among the Impressionists possessed, and which, besides, are of the rarest in painting, can now be appreciated. They are of a subtlety hard to isolate or define: a painter may be great without them" (P. Valry, Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, 1989, p. 118).
One of the first owners of Behind the Blinds was the Japanese connoisseur and collector Tadamasa Hayashi (1853-1906). His passion for collecting modern French painting began as early as 1881 when he received a drawing by Renouard as gratitude for assistance he had provided M. L. Gonse on Japanese Art. He befriended many of the Impressionists and intended his collection to be shown publicaly in Tokyo to further the exchange between the artists of both countries (T. Hayashi, "preface", Paul Renouard, exh. cat., Paris, Galerie Bodinire, May 1894). The painting was later purchased by Thodore Duret whose family fortune had been made through the production of cognac. He was collector and advocate of the Impressionist cause and his 1878 book Histoire des peintres Impressionistes was the first to detail the leading figures of the movement.