Provenance
Heirs of the artist; sold 1899 to (Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris);[1] sold 28 February 1912 to Albert Barnes [1872-1951];[2] sold 27 November 1936 to Galerie Étienne Bignou, New York.[3] (Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York); sold 17 January 1941 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce [1901-1969], New York;[4] bequest 1970 to NGA.
[1] According to Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Morisot heirs (probably her daughter Julie Rouart) had initially sold the artist’s Devant la glace to Durand-Ruel at the 1 May 1899 Galerie Georges Petit sale (no. 67). However, immediately after the sale, the Morisot family exchanged that painting with Young Woman with a Straw Hat (Durand-Ruel stock no. 5176, photo no. 1287). See email of 4 June 2024 in NGA curatorial file. The painting was exhibited by Durand-Ruel at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1905.
[2] Barnes sent the artist William Glackens [1870–1938] to France in early 1912 to purchase modern French art for him. See email of 29 January 2015 from Bill Scott about the purchase of this painting in NGA curatorial file. The receipt dated 28 February 1912 from Durand-Ruel to William Glackens, in the Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes Foundation Archives, Philadelphia (AR.ABC.1912.50) is digitized online at Barnes Foundation correspondence spotlights portal (accessed 30 July 2024); copy in NGA curatorial file.
[3] Amanda Knight of the Barnes Foundation Archives, in email of 6 August 2024, kindly provided the letter of 27 November 1936 from Barnes to Georges Keller, director of the Bignou Gallery, New York, that confirmed the sale as well as the follow up letter of 28 November 1936 from Keller regarding payment. See the Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes Foundation Archives, Philadelphia (AR.ABC.1936.66); copies in NGA curatorial file. Keller later became the director of the Carstairs Gallery.
Accession Number
1970.17.49
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 55.5 × 46.7 cm (21 7/8 × 18 3/8 in.) | framed: 71.76 × 62.23 × 8.89 cm (28 1/4 × 24 1/2 × 3 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Young Woman with a Straw Hat, painted in 1884, depicts a fashionably dressed woman seated in a garden, her straw hat framing a face rendered in Morisot characteristically rapid, confident brushwork. The painting belongs to the most productive period of Morisot career, when she had fully mastered the Impressionist technique she had helped to invent.
The straw hat, with its broad brim and its decorative ribbon, is the painting defining element. It creates a circular form that anchors the composition and provides a focus for Morisot exploration of light: the hat casts a shadow on the woman face, creating a play of light and dark that Morisot renders with her signature freedom. The garden setting, rendered in bright, broken strokes of green and blue, surrounds the figure without competing with it.
Morisot was the most consistently fashion-conscious of the Impressionists. Her paintings of women in hats, dresses, and accessories document the changing fashions of the Third Republic with the precision of a fashion illustrator, but with a sensibility that transforms fashion into art. Her straw-hatted women are not mannequins but individuals, their personalities emerging through the rapid brushwork that refuses to settle into a fixed description.
Cultural Impact
Morisot fashion paintings, with their attention to the details of women dress and accessories, are among the most important visual documents of Belle Epoque fashion and influenced the tradition of fashion illustration in the 20th century. Her demonstration that fashion itself could be a vehicle for the most ambitious painting expanded the range of Impressionist subject matter.
Why It Matters
This painting captures Morisot most distinctive gift: the ability to render the transient moment with a permanence that does not sacrifice its transience. The woman in the straw hat, her face half in shadow, is both a specific person and a study in the effect of sunlight on a summer afternoon - captured before it changes.
