Lot 7
Berthe Morisot
Plage de la Comtesse dans la brume
Amended
19 June 2012, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £37,250 inc. premium
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Berthe Morisot
Plage de la Comtesse dans la brume
stamped with signature 'Berthe Morisot' (lower left)
oil on canvas
24 x 35cm (9 7/16 x 13 3/4in).
Painted in 1884
stamped with signature 'Berthe Morisot' (lower left)
oil on canvas
24 x 35cm (9 7/16 x 13 3/4in).
Painted in 1884
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Galerie Moos, Geneva.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, 23 June 1982, lot 5.
EXHIBITED
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, 1896, no.156.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1919, no.57.
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, 1941, no.119.
Dieppe, Musée de Dieppe, 1957, no.57.
Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, 1961, no.98
Vevey, Musée Jenisch, 1961, no.81.
London, JPL Fine Arts, November 1990 - January 1991. no.37.
LITERATURE
M. Angouluent, Berthe Morisot, Paris, 1933, no.612.
M.L. Bataille & G.Wildenstein, Berthe Morisot, Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures, Pastels et Aquarelles, Paris, 1961, no.388 (illustrated fig.378.)
A. Clairet, D. Montalant & Y. Rouart, Berthe Morisot, Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint, 1997, no.384 (illustrated p.305)
Morisot stayed in Portrieux, on the Bay of Saint-Brieux in Brittany, from 10 August to 14 September 1894, renting an old granite house called Roche Plate. The trip seems to have come about almost by accident. As she wrote to Mallarmé 'We made up our minds to go to Brittany just by looking at the little posters in the waiting room of Gare Saint-Lazare ... My nieces are with me; we walk on the shore, in the open country and everything would be charming if the place were not pretty, inviting me to paint it' (D. Rouart, Berthe Morisot, Correspondance, London, 1987, p. 207). Mallarmé responded with a verse;
Ce mot, qui sur elle planait
A Portrieux, la Roche Plate,
Retraite des Dames Manet,
Dans les Côtes-du-Nord éclate.
Berthe Morisot also hoped that Renoir might be able to visit them, but he declined regretfully saying that too far to travel. Instead he wrote 'And so enjoy yourself; bring back some of those lovely sea views, which are so lovely in Brittany, with the water clear all the way to the edge' (D. Rouart, op. cit., p. 207). The sojourn in Brittany resulted in at fifteen paintings, of which four of the same dimensions as the present work (A. Clairet, op. Cit., nos. 389-392).
Saleroom notices
Additional lot. Please note this work was painted in 1894 and not as stated above.