How does this artwork elucidate its History?
Morisot was always highly regarded as a woman in the world of the Impressionists. Where her predominantly male colleagues, however, usually took inspiration in the modern city life, going into streets and cafes, painting parks and bridges, she, like Mary Cassatt, for example, often opted for the depiction of indoor domestic subjects. Morisot often chose acquaintances and relatives as models. It suited her role as a woman in society of her time, no matter how progressive and emancipated she was.
Morisot exhibited In the Dining Room at the eighth and last major Impressionist exhibition in 1886. Critics mainly commented on her wild, streaky working method, which had never appeared so emphatically in her work before. Reviews for this painting were both positive and negative. Some called it "unfinished", while the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary, on the other hand, wrote of the painting that Morisot had an extraordinary artistic feeling.
Mary Cassatt