This brilliant and free evocation of an unknown young woman in evening dress is at the antipodes of the worldly or official portrait practiced by the painters accustomed to the Salon.

The work is situated at the confluence of Impressionism and the art of Manet, Berthe Morisot's brother-in-law. However, despite the modernity of its style, the latter has always been supported by critics.

Thus, when she presented about fifteen paintings at the fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880, including this one, Charles Ephrussi published in the Gazette des Beaux-Artsa poetic description and a sensitive analysis of the whole: "Mme Berthe Morisot is French by distinction, elegance, cheerfulness, carelessness; she loves joyful and stirring painting; she grinds flower petals on her palette , to then spread them on the canvas in witty, breathy touches, thrown a little at random, which agree, combine and end up producing something fine, lively and charming".

These considerations, however general, agree perfectly with this table. In fact, we observe a model immersed in a vegetal environment that resonates, both in form and in treatment, with the trim of her neckline.

https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/jeune-femme-en-toilette-de-bal-306