Swan and Duck, with Portraits of Julie

Art Historical Context

**Swan and Duck, with Portraits Julie** (1889) is a delicate drypoint print created collaboratively by Impressionist master Berthe Morisot and daughter, Julie Manet. Morisot, a trailblazing female artist in the Impressionist movement often captured intimate scenes of family life, gardens, and fleeting moments of light. This work, produced late in her career just six years before her death, tender portraits of young Julie alongside graceful swans and ducks, evoking a sense of serene domesticity and natural harmony. Drypoint, an intaglio printmaking technique, involves scratching directly onto a metal plate with a sharp needle, creating velvety lines and rich tonal effects from the burr of raised metal. Printed on fine wove paper, this modest plate (4 11/16 x 5 13/16 in.) yields an intimate image that highlights Morisot's fluid, expressive style—hallmarks of Impressionism adapted to print. The collaboration with Julie, who later became a noted painter herself, underscores the familial artistic legacy in late 19th-century France, where women artists navigated male-dominated circles. Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1922 through the Rogers Fund and Jacob H. Schiff Bequest, this print exemplifies Morisot's innovative spirit and enduring influence, inviting visitors to appreciate the subtle beauty of everyday wonders through a mother's loving gaze.

About the Artist

Berthe Morisot|Julie Manet · 1841–1895

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was a founding member of the Impressionist movement and one of the most significant women artists of the 19th century. Born into an affluent bourgeois family in Bourges, France—her mother was a great-niece of the Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard—Morisot received serious artistic training despite the social constraints facing women of her class. Under the guidance of...