The Pink Dress
A young woman on a terrace above the village of Castelnau-le-Lez, near Montpellier — an early open-air picture by Bazille, who died at 28.
Castelnau-le-Lez
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
The Pink Dress — at a glance
- Artist
- Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870)
- Year
- c. 1864
- Movement
- Impressionism (early)
- Place
- A terrace near Montpellier, looking to Castelnau-le-Lez, France
- Viewpoint
- The family property at Méric — the valley is now built over; the site survives as a park
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 147 × 110 cm
- Now at
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Overview
The Pink Dress is one of the first mature paintings by Frédéric Bazille, the gifted friend of Monet and Renoir who was killed in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, aged twenty-eight. Painted around 1864, it shows a young woman in a pink-and-white striped dress and straw hat sitting on a low terrace wall with her back half to the viewer, gazing across a sunlit valley to a village of pale houses on a hill. It is oil on canvas, about 147 by 110 cm, and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Where was The Pink Dress painted?
Museum interpretation Bazille came from a prosperous Protestant family in Montpellier, in the south of France, and often painted at their country property, the domaine de Méric, on the river Lez just outside the city. The village across the valley is Castelnau-le-Lez. Montpellier and Castelnau have since grown together into one urban area and the open valley in the picture is built over, though the site of Méric survives as a park; the view as painted is gone.
What is in the painting?
The woman sits on the terrace parapet at the left, seen from behind and the side, one hand resting on the stone. Below and beyond, a hillside of dry grass and scattered trees drops to the valley; the village climbs a low rise opposite, its ochre and cream houses and a church tower bright in strong sun against a deep blue sky. A band of terrace and wall runs across the foreground.
Look closely
The striped pink dress
The seated woman's pink-and-white dress and straw hat, painted against the pale village.
The village opposite
Ochre and cream houses and a church tower of Castelnau-le-Lez climbing a low hill in strong sun.
The hard Midi light
Sharp shadows, deep blue sky and strong local colour — the light of the south, crisper than Bazille's Paris friends painted.
The terrace wall
A band of stone parapet runs across the foreground; the woman rests a hand on it.
Analysis
Composition and light
A large seated figure at one side balances the sunlit village opposite, across a wide bright valley.
Scholarship Bazille sets the dark-outlined figure against the pale, sun-struck village and lets the terrace wall and the fall of the hillside carry the eye from one to the other. The light is the hard, clear light of the Midi — sharp shadows, strong local colour, a cloudless sky — handled more crisply than in his Paris friends' work of the same date.
History & provenance
The painting stayed with Bazille's family, who gave much of his work to the museum at Montpellier and the French state; The Pink Dress is in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Sources
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris — collection entry for Frédéric Bazille, ‘La Robe rose (Vue de village)’ (c. 1864; oil on canvas, c. 147 × 110 cm)
- Musée Fabre, Montpellier — Bazille and the domaine de Méric
Related paintings
More by Frédéric Bazille
Bazille's Studio
Réunion de famille
