Goose

Art Historical Context

Berthe Morisot's *Goose* (1889) captures the everyday grace of a single bird in a masterful drypoint print on wove paper. As a leading figure in the Impressionist movement, Morisot brought her signature lightness and spontaneity to printmaking late in her career. This intimate work, measuring 14 x 10 15/16 inches, showcases her ability to distill nature's essence with fluid lines, evoking the fleeting beauty she championed in paintings like her renowned garden scenes. Drypoint, an intaglio technique where the artist scratches directly into a metal plate, produces velvety, textured lines from the burr raised by the needle—ideal for Morisot's soft, impressionistic touch. Unlike etched prints with precise grooves, drypoint's organic quality suited her experimental side, bridging her oil paintings and graphic works. Created just four years before her death, it reflects her innovative spirit amid the evolving art world of fin-de-siècle Paris. Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1922 through the Rogers Fund and Jacob H. Schiff Bequest, *Goose* highlights Morisot's rare forays into printmaking, offering visitors a window into her versatile genius and the Impressionists' embrace of humble subjects. A charming study in simplicity, it invites contemplation of nature's quiet poetry.

About the Artist

Berthe Morisot · 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...