Young Girl Holding a Basket
1891
Berthe Morisot French, 1841–1895
France
This large-scale drawing is a study for the painting The Cherry Tree (1891, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris). The model is Berthe Morisot’s niece, Jeanne Gobillard, who lifts a basket to gather fruit. The light passages of yellow pastel suggest patches of sunlight reflecting off her hat, hair, and dress. The pink paper Morisot used adds additional luminosity to this outdoor scene.
Pastel on pink laid paper with red fibrous inclusions (pieced at bottom), stretched and edge mounted on a honeycomb paper panel