Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets

Towards the end of 1871, he resumed his work taking up his former models including Berthe Morisot, a young painter with whom he shared a deep friendship and who would marry one of his brothers a few months later. Rather than using the uniform light he often employed in his portraits, Manet chose here to light his model vividly from the side so that Berthe Morisot's face seems to be all light and shadow. Here represented with black eyes (in fact they were green), she is dressed all in black, with a matching hat, no doubt better to enhance her "Spanish" beauty remarked on since her first appearance in Manet's work in 1869. This sublime composition in blacks is yet another confirmation of Manet's virtuosity.