Paris 1874 Inventing impressionism

This season, Les Néréides is unveiling an exclusive collaboration with the musée d'Orsay and the Rmn-GP. Three works by the Parisian museum are featured on the jewellery.

Berthe Morisot and her tabeau "Jeune femme en Toilette de Bal" (Young Girl in a Ball Dress) take pride of place in this second set. The colour palette of the painting, in perfect harmony with the House's universe, is gracefully interpreted through a floral motif in a series of pieces designed especially for this young woman. The collection includes a hair pick, a reference to her chignon, and an asymmetrical necklace, a nod to the cut of her dress.

Paul Mantz, one of the first art critics to have noticed the artist, described the painting: « Madame Morisot excels in mixing fine pale colours. She paints the portrait of a woman wearing a low-cut dress, seated in a garden. The flesh is blond, the flowers, vague, add light touches of pinkish lilac to the greyish greens of the background; everything floats, nothing is sharply defined; the tone itself is hesitant, undecisive, and there is a finesse reminiscent of Fragonard, giving the feeling of a dreamlike world, in which the colours have not yet assumed their accent and the indistinct tones do not know that they will later have an individuality and a status. »
The name of the model is unknown. After having been owned by the artist De Nittis, the painting was purchased by the art critic Théodore Duret who wrote about this work: « I kept it at home in the best position and when Mallarmé came to see me, we would both go into raptures over its charm. ». Finally, this Young Girl in a Ball Dress was the first painting by the artist to enter the French public collections in 1894, thanks to the initiative of Stéphane Mallarmé.

Young Girl in a Ball Dress, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) Oil on canvas, 1879. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

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