“The Cradle” by Berthe Morisot

June 23, 2026

The painting The Cradle, created two years earlier by the French impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, was exhibited for the first time in 1874. At first the canvas was barely noticed, although some critics had delicately grasped the grace and elegance of the work. The painting was later appreciated in all its value, as a sign of wider recognition of the art of Morisot, the first woman to be part of the Impressionism movement. In the composition the painter captures a moment of intense family intimacy, depicting her sister Edma watching over her little daughter Blanche. With a fresh naturalism and without giving in to the lure of a saccharine sentimentalism, Morisot creates an atmosphere in which the tenderness of the subject and the persuasive simplicity of a fragment of everyday life impose themselves. …