Atelier de l’artiste

Collection de sa fille Julie Manet (1878-1966), épouse d’Ernest Rouart (selon une étiquette au dos)

Vente Paris, Beaussant Lefèvre & associés, 3 juin 2022, lot 10 

Acquis lors de cette vente par l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Berthe Morisot (Madame Eugène Manet), avec portrait photogravé d’après Édouard Manet, Préface par Stéphane Mallarmé, Exposition de son œuvre, mars 1896, n°138 p.26

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition d'œuvres de Berthe Morisot : au profit des « Amis du Luxembourg », mai 1929, n°101 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Eté 1941, préface de Paul Valéry, n°114 p.24 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Berthe Morisot, 1961, n°99 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Vevey, Musée Jenisch, Berthe Morisot, juin-septembre 1961, n° 82

Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Berthe Morisot, octobre 2024 - mars 2025, n°39, reproduit p.132-133

M. Angoulvent, Berthe Morisot, Editions Albert Morancé, Paris, 1933, n°615 p.149 (titrée Jeannie et Julie au Portrieux, dans le jardin de la Roche Plate (1894))

M.-L. Bataille, G. Wildenstein, Berthe Morisot, Catalogue des peintures, pastels et aquarelles, Les Beaux-Arts, Collection l'Art Français, Paris, 1961, n°392 p.49, reproduit en noir et blanc fig.382

A. Clairet, D. Montalant et Y. Rouart, Berthe Morisot 1841-1895 - Catalogue Raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Collection Le Catalogue -CÉRA-nrs éditions, Montolivet, 1997, n° 397 reproduit en noir et blanc p.307

La Gazette Drouot, n° 18, 6 mai 2022, reproduit en couleur p.21

La Gazette Drouot, n° 21, 27 mai 2022, reproduit en couleur p.44

In a letter addressed to Stéphane Mallarmé, Berthe Morisot wrote that it was in seeing posters for Brittany at the Gare Saint-Lazare that she decided to revisit her childhood memories and spend her vacation there at the end of the summer of 1894.

She rented “La Roche Plate” in Saint-Quay-Portrieux, in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, a sprawling house where she settled with her daughter Julie and her nieces Paule and Jeannie. In this letter inviting Mallarmé to join her, she explains why she chose this holiday destination: “we decided to go to Brittany simply by looking at the little posters in the waiting room at the Gare Saint-Lazare… My nieces are with me; we walk along the shore, in the open countryside, and everything would be delightful if not for the fact that this place is so pretty, constantly inviting me to paint it ¹.” She also invites Pierre-Auguste Renoir to come and visit her, but he is unable to accept the invitation.

He encourages her to: “Bring back some of those lovely views of the sea, so beautiful in Brittany, with that clear water right up to the shore, and your Julies in white against a backdrop of golden islands.” Well before her, Eugène Boudin had already placed his easel on that same beach in 1868, as Paul Signac would do twenty years later. As for Berthe Morisot (ill. 1), she painted views of the bay and the countryside animated by figures wearing the Breton headdress, portraits of young Breton girls and views of the garden.

The present work belongs to a small series of canvases painted at Portrieux, which allowed her to return to the subject of the garden. In this view of La Roche Plate, two young women wearing large Breton headdresses, as in La Falaise au Portrieux² (ill. 2) are chatting in the middle of a pathway. According to Monique Angoulvent, it would appear to be Morisot’s niece Jeannie and her daughter Julie. Standing out behind them is the house whose roof emerges from a flower-filled garden. The opulent vegetation provides both a natural backdrop for this conversation and a subject rich in colour. Painted one year before the artist’s death, this work expresses her late style where the elongated impressionist brushstroke is particularly vigorous and free. The painting demonstrates a manner of working now enriched by drawing and the pursuit of a subtle harmony between line and colour. The influence of Renoir, with whom Morisot was particularly close during the last decade of her life, is also evident in this work in the softness of the contours and the luminous sensuality of the paint. Kept by her only daughter, Julie Manet, the work was for her a precious memento of her mother’s final years and brought back happy memories of that stay in Brittany (ill. 3).

1. Lettre de Berthe Morisot à Stéphane Mallarmé, 1894, citée dans Mallarmé - Morisot : correspondance 1876-1895, Lettres réunies et annotées par Olivier Daulte et Manuel Dupertuis, Lausanne, La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1995.

2. Vente Londres, Christie’s, 25 juin 1998, lot n° 150 ou vente New York, Sotheby’s, 3 novembre 2011, lot n° 216.

Fig. 1 : Berthe Morisot, Autoportrait, 1885, huile sur toile, Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet

Fig. 2 : Berthe Morisot, Sur la falaise au Portrieux, 1894, huile sur toile, collection particulière

Fig. 3 : Berthe Morisot, Sur la plage à Portrieux, 1894, huile sur toile