Under the Orange Tree

Artist Berthe Morisot (French, 1841 - 1895)

Date1889

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 21 1/2 × 25 7/8 inches (54.61 × 65.72 cm)
Framed: 28 3/4 × 33 3/8 × 3 1/8 inches (73.03 × 84.77 × 7.94 cm)

Credit LineGift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch

Object number2015.13.15

SignedEstate stamp lower right: Berthe Morisot

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThis horizontal genre painting depicts a girl wearing a white dress and straw hat facing forward and sitting on the ground at the base of an orange tree. The setting is a shallow landscape with no horizon line and no view of the sky. To her proper right is a small birdcage with a green parrot inside; to her proper left is another small orange tree trunk. Above her head to the right hangs a tree branch laden with oranges. The palette is comprised mostly of pale peaches, greens, and yellows. The brushwork is fluid and sketchy.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Berthe Morisot (Madame Eugène Manet), 1841-1896, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, March 5-21, 1896, no. 95, as Sous l’oranger.

Exposition Berthe Morisot, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, April 23-May 10, 1902, no. 15, as Sous l’Oranger.

Salon d’Automne, 5ème Exposition: Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Art décoratif; Exposition Rétrospective d’Œuvres de Berthe Morisot, Grand Palais, Paris, October 1-22, 1907, no. 32, as Sous l’oranger.

Berthe Morisot (Madame Eugène Manet), 1841-1895, Knoedler and Co., London, May-June 1936, no. 20, as Sous l’oranger.

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, Summer 1941, no. 81, as Sous l’oranger.

Exposition Berthe Morisot, 1841-1895, Galerie Motte, Geneva, June 12-30, 1951, no. 11, as Fille sous les orangers.

Hommage à Berthe Morisot et à Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Musée Municipal, Limoges, France, July 19-October 10, 1952, no. 10, as Sous l’oranger.

Plaisirs de la Campagne, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1954, hors cat.

Exposition Berthe Morisot, Château-Musée de Dieppe, France, July 5-September 30, 1957, no. 42, as Sous l’oranger (Nice).

Exposition Berthe Morisot (1841-1895): Peintures, Aquarelles, Dessins, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, France, July 1-September 15, 1958, no. 47, as Sous l’oranger.

Berthe Morisot, Musée Jenisch Vevey, Vevey, Switzerland, June 24-September 3, 1961, no. 237, as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 1961, no. 66, as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot, Galerie Lucien Blanc, Aix-en-Provence, July 6-28, 1962, no. 19, as Sous l’oranger.

Six Femmes-Peintres: Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalès, Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Marie Laurencin, Nathalia Gontcharova, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan, March 29-April 14, 1983; Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan, June 5-July 3, 1983; Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Kumamoto, Japan, July 14-August 14, 1983, no. 6, as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot: Impressionist, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 6-November 29, 1987; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, December 12, 1987-February 21, 1988; Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA, March 14-May 9, 1988, no. 80, as Under the Orange Tree.

Inaugural Exhibition of French Impressionist Paintings and Drawings, Eastlake Gallery, New York, October 20, 1989, unnumbered, as Sous l’Oranger (Portrait de Julie Manet).

Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 9-September 9, 2007, no. 18, as Under the Orange Tree (Sous l’oranger).

Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, June 21-September 23, 2018; The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, October 21, 2018-January 14, 2019; Dallas Museum of Art, February 24-May 26, 2019; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, June 18-September 22, 2019, no. 74, as Under the Orange Tree (Québec only).

Berthe Morisot à Nice: Escales impressionnistes, Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice, June 7–September 29, 2024; Impression, Morisot, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, October 12, 2024–February 23, 2025.

Gallery Label

Berthe Morisot was a leading and dedicated member of the Impressionists, whose professional artist association was the first to admit women and men equally. As a wealthy middle-class woman, she was not able to access the spaces of urban modernity, such as concert cafés and dance halls, that men often depicted. Her paintings thus reflect the feminine, often domestic sphere to which she was confined.

Here, her daughter Julie sits in the garden of Morisot’s winter home in the south of France, near brightly rendered orange trees and a parrot in a birdcage.

Provenance

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Paris, 1889-March 2, 1895;

By descent to her daughter, Julie Rouart (née Manet, 1878-1966), Paris, 1895-at least 1936;

To her grandson, Yves Rouart (b. 1940), Paris, by 1958-at least 1983 [1];

Purchased from Yves Rouart by the Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, Paris, acquired between 1983-1986-by 1987 [2];

Purchased from the Galerie Hopkins-Thomas by a private collector, New York, by 1987 [3];

Private collection, Texas, by 1989 [4];

Purchased through Susan L. Brody Associates, New York, by Marion (née Helzberg, 1931-2013) and Henry (1922-2019) Bloch, Shawnee Mission, KS, November 26, 1990-June 15, 2015;

Given by Henry and Marion Bloch to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2015.

NOTES:

[1] An inscription preserved on the stretcher says “à Yves.” It was previously thought that François Rouart (b. 1941), granddaughter of Julie Rouart, inherited Under the Orange Tree after Julie’s death. However, correspondence with the Galerie Hopkins-Thomas confirmed that Françoise Rouart never owned the picture. See letter from Marie-Caroline van Herpen, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, to Brigid Boyle, NAMA, April 30, 2015, NAMA curatorial files.

[2] According to a label preserved on the backing board, “Galerie Hopkins and Thomas” lent Under the Orange Tree to the exhibition Berthe Morisot: Impressionist (National Gallery of Art, September 6-November 29, 1987). However, the exhibition catalogue specifies that the painting was lent from a private collection, “courtesy of Galerie Hopkins-Thomas.” In Alain Clairet et al., Berthe Morisot, 1841–1895: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint (Paris: CÉRA-nrs, 1997), the authors mistakenly suggest that Under the Orange Tree (no. 241) passed through the Galerie Hopkins-Thomas twice, when in fact it only did so once. See letter from Marie-Caroline van Herpen, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, to Brigid Boyle, NAMA, April 30, 2015, NAMA curatorial files. Galerie Hopkins-Thomas purchased the painting directly from the Rouart family between 1982 and 1986. See correspondence from Christine Fournié, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, to Danielle Hampton, NAMA, September 27, 2018, NAMA curatorial files.

[3] See letter from Marie-Caroline van Herpen, Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, to Brigid Boyle, NAMA, April 29, 2016, NAMA curatorial files.

[4] See Inaugural Exhibition of French Impressionist Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Eastlake Gallery, 1989), unpaginated.

Published References

Berthe Morisot (Madame Eugène Manet): exposition de son œuvre, exh. cat. 2^nd ed. (Paris: Durand-Ruel, 1896), 23, as Sous l’oranger.

Exposition Berthe Morisot, exh. cat. (Paris: Durand-Ruel, 1902), unpaginated, as Sous l’Oranger.

Salon d’Automne, 5ème Exposition: Catalogue des Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Art décoratif; Exposition Rétrospective d’Œuvres de Berthe Morisot, exh. cat. (Paris: Compagnie Française des Papiers-Monnaie, 1907), 256, as Sous l’oranger.

Louis Rouart, “Berthe Morisot (M^meEugène Manet), 1841-1895,” Art et Décoration: Revue Mensuelle d’art Moderne, no. 5 (May 1908): 173, (repro.), as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot (Madame Eugène Manet), 1841-1895, exh. cat. (London: M. Knoedler, 1936), unpaginated, as Sous l’oranger.

Berthe Morisot, 1841-1895, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée de l’Orangerie, 1941), 19, 30, as Sous l’oranger. Bottom of Form

Exposition Berthe Morisot, 1841-1895, exh. cat. (Geneva: Galerie Motte, 1951), unpaginated, as Fille sous les orangers.

Hommage à Berthe Morisot et à Pierre-Auguste Renoir: catalogue de l’exposition, exh. cat. (Limoges, France: Musée Municipal, 1952), 32, as Sous l’oranger.

Exposition Berthe Morisot, exh. cat. (Dieppe, France: Château-Musée de Dieppe, 1957), 5, as Sous l’oranger (Nice).

Berthe Morisot, The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot with her family and her friends, ed. Denis Rouart, trans. Betty W. Hubbard (New York: E. Weyhem 1957), 146.

Exposition Berthe Morisot (1841-1895): peintures, aquarelles, dessins, exh. cat. (Albi, France: Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, 1958), 32, as Sous l’oranger.

Possibly Rosamond Bernier, “Dans la lumiere impressioniste,” L’Oeil, no. 53 (May 1959): 39, (repro.).

Georges Reyer, “Le déchirant amour de Berthe Morisot,” Match, no. 627 (April 15, 1961): 91, (repro.).

Marie-Louise Bataille and Georges Wildenstein, Berthe Morisot: Catalogue des Peintures, Pastels et Aquarelles (Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1961), no. 237, pp. 38, 58, 69, (repro.), as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée Jacquemart André, 1961), unpaginated, as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot, exh. cat. (Vevey, Switzerland: Musée Jenisch Vevey, 1961), 10, as Sous l’Oranger.

Berthe Morisot, 1841-1895, exh. cat. (Aix-en-Provence: Galerie Lucien Blanc, 1962), unpaginated, as Sous L’oranger.

“The Great Ones All Painted Us: Renoir, Degas, Manet and Mother; A French Lady’s Engaging Recollections,” Life 54, no. 19 (May 10, 1963): 53-55, (repro.).

Jean Dominique Rey, Berthe Morisot (Paris: Flammarion, 1982), 63, 82, (repro.), as Sous l’Oranger.

Six Femmes-Peintres: Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalès, Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Marie Laurencin, Nathalia Gontcharova, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1983), 26, 160, (repro.), as Sous l’Oranger.

Julie Manet, Journal, 1893–1899 (Paris: Editions Scala, 1987), 94, as Sous l’oranger.

Charles F. Stuckey and William P. Scott, Berthe Morisot: Impressionist, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1987), 138, 140, 142, 221, (repro.), as Under the Orange Tree.

Inaugural Exhibition of French Impressionist Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Eastlake Gallery, 1989), unpaginated, as Sous l’Oranger (Portrait de Julie Manet).

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), exh. cat. (London: JPL Fine Arts, 1990), 47, as Sous l’oranger.

Alain Clairet, Delphine Montalant and Yves Rouart, Berthe Morisot, 1841–1895: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint (Paris: CÉRA-nrs éditions, 1997), no. 241, pp. 232, 335, (repro.), as Sous l’Oranger.

Margaret Shennan, Berthe Morisot: The First Lady of Impressionism (Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2000), 245, 285, as Under the Orange Tree.

Jean-Dominique Rey, Berthe Morisot: La Belle Peintre (Paris: Flammarion, 2002), 81, as Sous l’oranger.

Denise Brahimi, La peinture au féminin: Berthe Morisot et Mary Cassatt (Paris: Jean-Paul Rocher, 2003), 104-05, as Sous l’oranger.

Bobbie Leigh, “Magnificent Obsession,” Art and Antiques 29, no. 6 (June 2006): 62, as Under the Orange Tree.

Richard R. Brettell and Joachim Pissarro, Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 11, 15, 98, 100-03, 159, (repro.), as Under the Orange Tree (Sous l’oranger).

"A tiny Renoir began impressive obsession Bloch collection gets its first public exhibition,” Kansas City Star (June 2, 2007): https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article294930/A-tiny-Renoir-began-impressive-obsession-Bloch-collection-gets-its-first-public-exhibition.html

Alice Thorson, “First Public Exhibition: Marion and Henry Bloch’s art collection,” Kansas City Star (June 3, 2007): E4, as Sous l’Oranger.

Carol Vogel, “Inside Art: Kansas City Riches,” New York Times 159, no. 54,942 (February 5, 2010): C26.

Jean-Dominique Rey and Sylivie Patry, Berthe Morisot (Paris: Flammarion, 2010), 109, as Sous l’oranger (Under the Orange Tree).

Diane Stafford, “Bloch Gift to Go for Nelson Upgrade,” Kansas City Star 135, no. 203 (April 8, 2015): A8.

“Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Officially Accessions Bloch Impressionist Masterpieces,” Artdaily.org (July 25, 2015): http://artdaily.com/news/80246/Nelson-Atkins-Museum-of-Art-officially-accessions-Bloch-Impressionist-masterpieces#.V6oGwlKFO9.

Julie Paulais, “Le Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art reçoit des tableaux impressionnistes en échange de leurs répliques,” Le Journal des arts (July 30, 2015): http://www.lejournaldesarts.fr/site/archives/docs_article/129801/le-nelson-atkins-museum-of-art-recoit-des-tableaux-impressionnistes-en-echange-de-leurs-repliques.php.

Nancy Staab, “Van Gogh is a Go!” 435: Kansas City’s Magazine (September 2015): 76.

Robin de Clercq, “How Google will Preserve Art, One Gigapixel at a Time,” Resource (June 7, 2016): http://resourcemagonline.com/2016/06/how-google-will-preserve-art-one-gigapixel-at-a-time/67304/.

“Nelson-Atkins to unveil renovated Bloch Galleries of European Art in winter 2017,” Artdaily.org (July 20, 2016): http://artdaily.com/news/88852/Nelson-Atkins-to-unveil-renovated-Bloch-Galleries-of-European-Art-in-winter-2017-#.W-nfbpNKi70.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 87, (repro.).

Albert Hect, “Henry Bloch’s Masterpieces Collection to Go on Display at Nelson-Atkins Museum,” Jewish Business News (February 26, 2017): http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2017/02/26/henry-bloch-masterpieces-collection/.

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Hampton Stevens, “(Not Actually) 12 Things To Do During The Big 12 Tournament,” Flatland: KCPT’s Digital Magazine (March 9, 2017): http://www.flatlandkc.org/arts-culture/sports/not-actually-12-big-12-tournament/.

Laura Spencer, “The Nelson-Atkins’ Bloch Galleries feature Old Masterworks and New Technology,” KCUR (March 10, 2017): http://kcur.org/post/nelson-atkins-bloch-galleries-feature-old-masterworks-and-new-technology#stream/0.

Victoria Stapley-Brown, “Nelson-Atkins Museum’s new European art galleries come with a “love story”,” Art Newspaper (March 10, 2017): http://theartnewspaper.com/news/museums/nelson-atkins-museum-s-new-european-art-galleries-come-with-a-love-story/.

Harry Bellet, “Don du ciel pour le Musée Nelson-Atkins,” Le Monde (March 13, 2017): http://www.lemonde.fr/arts/article/2017/03/13/don-du-ciel-pour-le-musee-nelson-atkins_5093543_1655012.html .\

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Erich Hatala Matthes, “Digital replicas are not soulless – they help us engage with art,” Apollo: The International Art Magazine (March 23, 2017):https://www.apollo-magazine.com/digital-replicas-3d-printing-original-artworks/.

Louise Nicholson, “How Kansas City got its magnificent museum,” Apollo (April 7, 2017): https://www.apollo-magazine.com/how-kansas-city-got-its-magnificent-museum/

Cindy Kang et al., Berthe Morisot: Woman Impressionist (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2018), 208, (repro.), as Under the Orange Tree.

Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Henry W. Bloch, Tax-Preparation Pioneer (and Pitchman), Is Dead at 96,” New York Times (April 23, 2019): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/obituaries/henry-w-bloch-dead.html.

Claire Selvin, “Henry Wollman Bloch, Collector and Prominent Benefactor of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Is Dead at 96,” ArtNews (April 23, 2019): http://www.artnews.com/2019/04/23/henry-bloch-dead-96/.

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Eric Adler, “Sold for $3.25 million, Bloch’s home in Mission Hills may be torn down,” Kansas City Star 141, no. 90 (December 16, 2020): 2A .

Danielle Hampton Cullen, “Berthe Morisot, Under the Orange Tree, 1889,” catalogue entry, and Mary Schafer, “Berthe Morisot, Under the Orange Tree, 1889,” technical entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, ed., French Paintings, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2021), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.636.

Johanne Lindskog and Marianne Mathieu, Berthe Morisot à Nice: Escales impressionnistes, exh. cat. (Milan: Editions Electa, 2024).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.