MURA · THE COLLECTION · BERTHE MORISOT

Summer’s Day

Summer's Day is an oil painting by Berthe Morisot from about 1879, showing two women in a boat on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. It measures 45.7 by 75.2 centimetres and belongs to the National Gallery in London (NG3264, Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917), which shares it with the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.

Berthe Morisot · 1879 · Oil on canvas · Impressionism · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

Two women share a summer pause on water alive with reflected colour. The National Gallery describes them as possibly professional models, at leisure in a boat on the lake of the Bois de Boulogne, the park remade in the 1850s from formal gardens into naturalistic woodland. The horizon is cropped at the top edge, so that, in the gallery's words, it is "as if we are in the boat with them".

How it was painted

Morisot was born in Bourges in 1841 and married Eugène Manet in 1874, the year she showed at the first Impressionist exhibition. She took part in all but one of the eight that followed, missing only 1879, when her daughter Julie was born. Her subjects were mostly private: family, children, women and gardens rather than public spaces.

The gallery draws attention to the "zig-zag brushstrokes" that run across water and foliage here, and calls the handling bold rather than gentle. Contemporary critics found her pictures unfinished and used the word "vaporeuse" of them, while admirers praised the subtlety of her tones. The painting was probably the one exhibited at the fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880 under the title The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne. The gallery notes that the canvas is unlined.

Where it went

The picture was among the 39 paintings, mostly French and Impressionist, left by Sir Hugh Lane, who died in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. His will of 1913 gave them to the National Gallery in London; a 1915 codicil redirecting them to Dublin was signed but not witnessed and had no legal force. Since 1959 the two cities have shared the collection under successive agreements. Under the 2021 arrangement, Summer's Day was in London from 2021 to 2025 and is on long-term loan to Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane from 2026 to 2031. The reproduction is the Commons file, which credits the gallery's online collection.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to the Impressionist Life collection with a serene mood: a slow afternoon on flat water, painted from inside the boat.