Title: The Shuttlecock

Artist: Berthe Morisot

The Shuttlecock 1888 Berthe Morisot French, Bourges 1841–Paris 1895 Oil on canvas Painted with the free, sketch-like brushwork that distinguishes Morisot even among other Impressionists, this engaging portrait depicts Jeanne Bonnet, a friend of the family who was about the same age as Morisot’s daughter Julie, then ten years old. Seated on a folding chair in a sunny garden, Bonnet holds a feathered shuttlecock, or volant, in her left hand and the handle of a racket in her right. Once fashionable among royals and aristocrats, the French jeu de volant was a precursor to badminton and by the nineteenth century was understood as an appropriate pastime for girls and young women.