The Harbor at Lorient

Berthe Morisot

National Gallery of Art

From behind a low stone wall, on which a young woman with pale skin sits, we look across a wide, shimmering blue waterway toward a town along the opposite shore, under a pale blue sky with wispy white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. The caramel-brown, stone wall runs across the lower right corner, into the distance to our right. The woman sits on our side of the wall with her legs angled to our right, and she twists to lean onto her right hand, on our left, as she looks down toward the water. Her brown hair and face are shaded by the pale, shell-pink umbrella she holds in her left hand, to our right. She wears an ankle-length white dress with long sleeves, and a touch of white on the black hat she wears suggests it is decorated with a flower. The waterway seems to be lined with smooth walls like a canal. Ships with black hulls and wooden masts nearly span the passageway and reflect in the surface of the water beyond the woman. The shore across from us is lined with a row of deep green trees in front of a cluster of cream-white buildings with charcoal-gray roofs. More buildings are visible in the distance on our side of the waterway. The scene is loosely painted so many details are difficult to make out, especially in the woman’s face. The artist signed the work in dark paint at the lower center: “B Morisot.”