The Old Track to Auvers

A woman reads beneath large, dark trees, with a small dog sitting on the ground nearby. Behind them, pale light opens a way through the woodland. Berthe Morisot's The Old Track to Auvers makes this quiet encounter between a person and a landscape its centre of interest. The reader occupies only a small part of the canvas, yet the open book gives the surrounding trees and shadows a human scale.

Painted in 1863, the work belongs to Morisot's early years of landscape study. Under its French title, Vieux chemin à Auvers, it is recorded as one of the paintings she exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1864. That public debut gives this small woodland scene a particular importance: it represents an early step from learning to paint towards establishing a professional career.^[1]

A reader sheltered by the trees

The most imposing forms in the painting are the tree trunks. Their thick, irregular bodies rise through much of the upright canvas, then divide into branches that reach across the lighter spaces. Smaller trees repeat their vertical movement farther away. This arrangement allows Morisot to suggest depth through differences of strength: dark, substantial trees seem close, while slender, pale ones appear to dissolve into the distance.

The figure sits close to the base of one of the large trunks. Her dark clothing joins the shadow around her, so that the face, hands and open book become especially noticeable. Morisot gives the viewer enough information to recognise an activity without making the reader compete with the scale of the woodland. The pale pages are a small, concentrated patch of light within the darker lower part of the picture.

Her lowered head directs attention towards the book. We can follow that movement without knowing what she is reading or who she is. The early catalogue identifies the landscape and records the artist's signature, but supplies no name for this figure.^[1] Her absorption in a private occupation is more available to us than her biography. That balance between a recognisable action and an unrevealed individual gives the scene some of its quietness.

Below the reader, the little dog forms another compact dark shape. Its upright body is set against the more broken marks of the ground, making it surprisingly easy to notice once the eye leaves the book. The two figures establish a modest sequence of attention: first the woman, then her nearby companion, then the irregular ground around them. They turn a stretch of woodland into a place where someone has stopped and settled.

The dog also helps us judge scale. Beside its small body, the trees become immense. Yet the woodland does not seem uninhabitable. The seated woman has found a protected position beneath a trunk, and the animal's proximity reinforces the sense of a shared resting place. These are effects of the arrangement rather than evidence of a particular story. Nothing requires us to decide that the pair are waiting for somebody, taking a prescribed walk or illustrating a literary episode.

How Morisot builds the woodland light

The title encourages us to look for a track, but the picture does not present an evenly marked road leading straight towards a destination. The ground is unevenly lit, interrupted by vegetation, tree bases and patches of shadow. The eye finds its own passage between these obstacles. Broadly, movement proceeds from the shaded foreground towards the pale interval among the trees, while the reader provides a reason to pause along the way.

The canvas's narrow proportions intensify the upward reach of the trunks. A horizontal landscape might offer room to survey the surrounding country; here the trees seem to continue beyond the frame. Branches cross the open areas above the figure, holding our attention within the woodland. Morisot combines an invitation into depth with a strong awareness of the painted surface, where dark lines and pale patches fit closely together.

In the colour reproduction, greens, browns and muted golden tones create a closely related range. The distance is much lighter than the foreground, but it does not become a separate expanse of brilliant blue sky. Light seems to spread through the vegetation itself. Pale touches among the leaves, across the ground and around the reader connect small details to the larger opening behind her.

Some of the most effective passages depend on suggestion. The distant foliage does not require every leaf to be distinguished. Short, broken marks around the ground remain different in character from the larger dark shapes of the trunks. Looking between them reveals how Morisot varies her handling according to a form's role in the composition. The trees need weight and continuity; the surrounding vegetation can remain shifting and dispersed.

The woodland thus has both a firm structure and a restless surface. The sitter shares something of that relationship. Her dress belongs to a larger area of shadow, while the smaller touches of the book, hands and face establish her separate presence. The same basic problem runs through the whole painting: how can a small light shape remain distinct while still belonging to its surroundings?

Learning from Corot and working near Auvers

Morisot's early landscape painting developed through sustained instruction and work alongside her sister Edma. Following lessons with Joseph Guichard and copying at the Louvre, the sisters turned to Camille Corot. Modern institutional accounts place their first contact with him around the beginning of the 1860s. The Musée d'Orsay's chronology also records Morisot studying with the landscape painter Oudinot in 1863.^[11][12]

The older catalogue gives a useful geographical context for that year. It relates that the sisters rented a small house at Le Chou, on the Oise between Pontoise and Auvers, so that they could paint near Oudinot. It connects this period with the preparation of landscapes for the following year's Salon.^[1] The title of The Old Track to Auvers therefore belongs to a documented period of work in the area. It does not, by itself, identify the precise stretch of ground or prove which direction the path runs.

Corot matters here as a teacher and an example of how to organise a landscape. The National Gallery describes his encouragement of outdoor painting as a formative influence on both sisters.^[12] In this picture, the broad relationship between dark trees, sheltered ground and a luminous distance offers a concrete way to understand that context. The effect depends on the arrangement of masses and tones across the whole image, as well as on the smaller details that make the woodland recognisable.

Morisot also copied Corot. Immediately before the Auvers paintings, the 1961 catalogue lists her View of Tivoli, identified as a copy after him and dated 1863.^[1] Copying another artist's composition and developing one's own landscape were therefore parts of the same period of study. The catalogue distinguishes the copy explicitly; it lists The Old Track to Auvers as a separate painting under Morisot's name. There is no reason to erase her authorship when discussing the importance of her teacher.

This early history also gives a fuller view of her development. The Old Track to Auvers predates her meeting with Édouard Manet, which the Orsay chronology places in 1868.^[11] By then, she had already studied landscape, worked in the Oise area and exhibited at the Salon. Readers interested in those successive stages can follow the broader account of Morisot's life and training.

A small painting at the Salon

The Paris Salon was the official exhibition through which Morisot first presented herself publicly as an artist. The Musée d'Orsay places her debut there in 1864 and treats Salon participation as part of her effort to build a professional career.^[11] The Old Track to Auvers belongs to that beginning, ten years before her participation in the first Impressionist exhibition.

The 1961 catalogue records two landscapes for the 1864 Salon. Souvenir des bords de l'Oise appears as no. 1394, followed by Vieux chemin à Auvers as no. 1395. Both are grouped under 1863 in the catalogue of paintings. The first is described there as lost; the second is measured, its signature transcribed as “B. Morisot”, and its image reproduced.^[1]

That difference makes the surviving image particularly valuable. We cannot reconstruct the pair's appearance at the Salon from these records alone. Nor does the catalogue tell us where the pictures hung or how a particular visitor responded to them. What it preserves is a specific link between this woodland composition and Morisot's first public exhibition. The familiar title is attached to an identifiable object, rather than floating free as a general description of her early interests.

Measuring approximately 45 by 32 centimetres, the painting is intimate in scale. Its concentrated arrangement suits that size: the reader, dog and pale distance can be discovered within a dense enclosure of trees. The documented exhibition history reminds us that such an intimate scene could also serve a public ambition. A subject drawn from a quiet outdoor setting became a work selected for submission and display.

A later history in collections and exhibitions

Sotheby's offered the picture in 2013. Its provenance traces it from the Hamburger Collection through Bernheim-Jeune in 1956 and Wildenstein in 1958 to Dr Ralph André Kling. It tentatively places it with Marlborough Fine Art by 1973, then with Nelson M. Skalbania by 1974. London auctions followed in 1978 and 1987; the latter buyer was listed as a private collector.^[2]

The same record lists exhibitions at Marlborough in 1973, the Royal Academy in 1974, the Musée Marmottan in 1993, and Lille and Martigny in 2002. These appearances renewed its public visibility. Sotheby's also reported a lined canvas in 2013; its brief condition account is not a full technical examination.^[2]

From this reader to the later outdoor figures

The relationship between a person and an outdoor setting continued to matter to Morisot. The Orsay exhibition's account of her practice emphasises her interest in placing figures in the open air, where changes of light make the relationship between body, clothing and surroundings especially demanding.^[11] The Old Track to Auvers gives an early example of that problem, with the figure largely absorbed into shade.

A revealing later comparison is Reading, painted in 1873 and now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. There, Edma sits in a field with a book, wearing a pale dress that spreads broadly across the foreground. The museum identifies her and notes the parasol and fan laid on the grass.^[5] The contrast with the Auvers work is striking: a small, dark reader beneath towering trees becomes a much larger, light-clothed presence within an open meadow.

Cleveland's X-ray examination also revealed that Morisot changed Edma's eyes from a direct outward look to attention towards the book.^[5] That revision underlines the importance of the reader's absorption in the later painting.

The shared activity makes the differences easier to see. In each painting a book gives the sitter something to attend to, allowing the viewer to study her relation to the landscape. In the early picture, the woodland dominates the encounter; in the later one, the dress and seated body occupy much more of the image. This is a comparison between two compositions, without requiring the unidentified Auvers reader to be Edma as well.

The early painting is rewarding on its own terms. The book, dog and great trunks establish an inhabited landscape with remarkably little narrative explanation. Its place in Morisot's training and Salon debut adds historical depth, but the visual invitation remains immediate: to enter the shade, notice the reader and look past her into the light.