In the Dining Room

In the center of the canvas, a woman pauses in her work.

She wears a navy dress with a clean white apron.

At her feet, a small white dog with brown patches playfully frisks about.

This is Rue de Villejust in Paris,

the light-filled dining room of painter Berthe Morisot's home.

To the left stands a tall sideboard that reaches almost to the ceiling.

Behind its glass doors, silverware and porcelain tableware are neatly arranged.

On the round table to the right rest a decanter and brightly colored fruit.

She was a maid who worked in this household.

In late nineteenth-century France, female domestic servants were indispensable in supporting middle-class homes.

Male painters of the era frequently chose them as subjects as well.

Yet many of those works emphasized the harsh miseries of a callous class system,

or cast an overtly sexualized gaze upon them.

Nameless lower-class women exhausted by relentless labor—

such was the customary depiction of maids in the art of the period.

Morisot's gaze, however, was entirely different.

She portrayed the servant working in her own home with warm respect,

as a cherished presence who shared an intimate everyday life.

The woman who posed for this painting was named Pasie.

She had originally been discovered by Morisot's mother during a journey to the south of France.

An innocent teenage country girl at the time, she was brought to Paris as a maid.

Even after Morisot married Eugène Manet, Pasie accompanied them to their new home.

She became a trusted nursemaid to their only daughter, Julie, born in 1879.

She was a truly indispensable part of the family's life.

Morisot was an exceptionally quiet, reserved person,

so much so that high society sometimes rumored her to be cold.

Offering polite smiles and effortlessly charming everyone—

she possessed none of that social dexterity.

That was precisely why she placed such profound trust in Pasie, who shared her personal everyday sphere.

Morisot left behind numerous paintings featuring Pasie as her model.