Madame Gobillard (Yves Morisot)

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Degas Madame Gobillard Yves Morisot: Introduction

Yves Morisot sits on a pale sofa, dressed in black and turned toward the right. Behind her, a doorway or window opens onto green, and a large framed picture fills the upper-right wall. The room is lightly painted in places; dark passages of her dress are broader and more worked. Edgar Degas left this portrait unfinished, but its arrangement already gives the sitter a strong presence within a domestic interior. ^{[1] [4]}

The painting is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot, 1838–1893), accession 29.100.45, dated 1869. Yves was the eldest sister of painter Berthe Morisot. The museum’s title names her as Madame Théodore Gobillard; the seated figure, pale sofa and framed picture distinguish this oil from Degas’s separate studies of the same sitter. ^[1]

The Oil Painting at a Glance

• ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
• SitterYves Morisot, Madame Théodore Gobillard (1838–1893)
• Date1869
• MediumOil on canvas
• Size55.2 × 65.1 cm
• CollectionThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 29.100.45
• Distinguishing detailsWoman in black on pale sofa; green opening at left; large framed picture at right

Contents

1. Introduction
2. At a Glance
3. A Sitter Within Her Room
4. A Drawing for the Seated Figure
5. A Pastel of Yves Morisot
6. Reception and Collection

A Sitter Within Her Room

The Met places Yves in the living room of her family’s Paris home. Degas does not set her against a blank backdrop. The sofa curves around her at the left and runs behind her toward the right. Her dark dress occupies much of the lower centre, while the light upholstery defines its edges. The framed picture on the wall echoes the rectangular opening beside her head. Those shapes give the room as much compositional weight as the sitter. ^[1]

Yves’s hands meet low in front of her. Her head turns toward the light and away from the viewer, so we see her face in near profile. The quiet pose should not be read as proof of a particular mood. What the painting does show is a carefully chosen relationship between face, hands, dress and setting. Even in its unfinished state, it is a considered portrait rather than a casual image of a figure on a sofa. ^[1]

The Met calls the painting unfinished. Light passages of the sofa and wall remain open, and brushwork shows plainly in the dress and framed picture. The degree of finish varies within the same canvas. That visible variation does not establish why Degas stopped or how he intended every area to look. ^[1]

A Drawing for the Seated Figure

The Met also owns a graphite study for the portrait, accession 1984.76. Yves has a similar seated pose, with her hands together and head turned right. Fine grid lines cross the paper. The museum explains that Degas enlarged the composition for the oil by about fifty percent. The drawing is a separate object: graphite on paper, smaller than the final canvas, and not an earlier photograph of the painting. ^[2]

The museum’s account draws on family letters. Madame Morisot told another daughter that Degas was making a sketch of Yves; Yves herself described the drawing as both lifelike and delicate, and wondered how it would transfer to canvas. These letters document the making of the portrait more directly than a later guess based only on the finished image. They do not tell us why the oil remained unfinished. ^[2]

Compare the study and oil. Both give Yves a seated posture and a similar turn of the head, yet the drawing concentrates on the figure and furniture rather than the full painted room. In the oil, the opening behind Yves and the large framed picture at right become stronger parts of the composition. The comparison shows how a preparatory design can be enlarged and developed without treating every difference as an accidental change. ^[1][2]

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A Pastel of Yves Morisot

A second Met work, Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot), accession 1976.201.8, is a vertical pastel from 1869. It gives a closer view of Yves’s head and shoulders. The museum identifies it as a preparatory study and contrasts its detailed treatment of her face with the sketchier features in the oil. A shared sitter and title do not make the two images interchangeable: the oil is a horizontal seated portrait; the pastel is a narrower bust. ^[1][3]

The pastel is useful because it makes certain features easier to study—the turn of the nose, the shape of the mouth, the modelling of the eyes. The oil places those features at a smaller scale within a room. Seen together, the two works show different decisions about what a portrait should emphasize. The comparison should not imply that Degas merely copied the pastel onto canvas. ^[1][3]

Reception and Collection

The Met reports that Mary Cassatt admired the oil and compared its quiet effect to Vermeer. That is Cassatt’s recorded response, not a fixed verdict about how everyone must see the painting. It also reminds us that an unfinished surface could still be valued by another painter. ^[1]

The oil entered the Met with the Havemeyer collection in 1929. The graphite study and pastel came into the museum separately and have different accession numbers. Among these three works, 29.100.45 is the oil portrait; the drawing and pastel are supporting comparisons. Their distinct numbers make clear that a painting, its preparatory drawing and a second image of the same sitter are separate objects. ^[1][2][3]

Selected madame gobillard yves morisot

Study for Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot)

Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot), pastel study

References

1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot, 1838–1893), 1869, oil on canvas, accession 29.100.45; owner title, sitter, date, dimensions and unfinished state. View source
2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Study for “Madame Théodore Gobillard” (Yves Morisot), 1869, graphite, accession 1984.76; owner discussion of family letters and enlargement into the oil. View source
3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot), 1869, pastel, accession 1976.201.8; owner discussion of the pastel and oil. View source
4. Splash image: Edgar Degas, Madame Théodore Gobillard (Yves Morisot, 1838–1893), 1869, oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 29.100.45. Collection record. View source

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