ABSTRACT
Berthe Morisot's Wet Nurse and Julie of 1879 is an extraordinary painting. Even in the context of an oeuvre in which formal daring is relatively unexceptional, this work is outstanding. "All that is solid melts into air"—Karl Marx's memorable phrase, made under rather different circumstances, could have been designed for the purpose of encapsulating Morisot's painting in a nutshell. Reading The Wet Nurse as a work scene inevitably leads to locate it within the representation of the thematics of work in nineteenth-century painting, particularly that of the woman worker. It also raises the issue of the status of work as a motif in Impressionist painting—its presence or absence as a viable theme for the group of artists which counted Morisot as an active member. To understand Morisot's Wet Nurse and Julie, one has to locate the profession of wet-nursing within the context of nineteenth-century social and cultural history.
