The Artist’s Daughter with a Parakeet

Berthe Morisot’s The Artist’s Daughter with a Parakeet (1890) is a late-career portrait of her daughter Julie, rendered in oil on canvas at 65.6 × 52.1 cm, and held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art ^[3][4]. Painted a decade after Morisot’s final Impressionist group exhibition, the work distills the artist’s lifelong concern with intimate domestic subject matter into a compact, tender composition ^[1].

Provenance: from the artist’s studio to the National Gallery of Art

The painting’s documented history begins with its creation in 1890, when Morisot was an established figure within the Impressionist circle ^[1][3]. The work entered the collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it is catalogued under accession data identifying Morisot as the artist, 1890 as the date, and oil on canvas as the medium ^[4]. The gallery’s open data record (art-object-page.46525) confirms the painting’s current institutional home, with Wikidata listing the collection identifier National Gallery of Art and dimensions of 65.6 × 52.1 cm ^[3][4].

Date	Event
1890	Painting created by Morisot [3][4]
20th century	Acquired by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. [4]

Technique: oil on canvas in the Impressionist manner

Morisot executed the portrait in oil on canvas, the medium she employed throughout her mature career ^[4]. Her technical approach, developed within the Impressionist circle she joined in 1874, emphasized rapid, visible brushwork that captured fleeting effects of light and atmosphere ^[1]. The painting’s relatively modest dimensions—65.6 × 52.1 cm—position it as an intimate cabinet piece rather than a grand public statement, consistent with Morisot’s focus on private domestic scenes ^[3].

Iconography: the artist’s daughter and the parakeet

The subject is Julie Manet, Morisot’s daughter, depicted with a parakeet ^[3]. The bird functions within the portrait’s domestic iconography, pairing the child with a pet in a manner typical of late 19th-century bourgeois family imagery. Morisot’s broader oeuvre repeatedly returned to women and children in interior settings, a thematic focus that art critic Gustave Geffroy recognized in 1894 when he named her, alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt, one of Les trois grandes dames—"the three great ladies"—of Impressionism ^[1].

Historical context: Morisot and the Impressionist exhibitions

Morisot’s career trajectory contextualizes the 1890 portrait. She first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1864, then joined the independent Impressionist exhibitions from their inaugural show in 1874, participating in all but one of the eight exhibitions held between 1874 and 1886 ^[1]. By 1890, when The Artist’s Daughter with a Parakeet was painted, the Impressionist group exhibitions had concluded, and Morisot continued to work within the stylistic idiom she had helped define ^[1]. Her marriage to Eugène Manet, brother of Édouard Manet, placed her at the center of avant-garde artistic networks in Paris ^[1].

Collection: the National Gallery of Art

The painting is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as documented in the museum’s open data catalogue ^[4]. The gallery’s record identifies the work as by Berthe Morisot, dated 1890, in oil on canvas, with no indication of later reattribution or dating controversy ^[4].

Frequently asked questions

Q: When was The Artist’s Daughter with a Parakeet painted?
A: The painting is dated 1890, according to both the National Gallery of Art’s catalogue record and Wikidata’s inception date of 1890-01-01 ^[3][4].

Q: What are the dimensions of the painting?
A: The work measures 65.6 × 52.1 cm, as recorded in Wikidata’s dimensions field ^[3].

Q: Where is the painting located today?
A: It is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, identified by the Wikidata collection identifier National Gallery of Art ^[3][4].