Summer's Day (or Jour d'eté) depicts two women seated in a row boat, and was painted in the Bois de Boulogne.
Morisot employed a rather unusual palette in this painting. She painted the dark blue coat of the woman on the right with cerulean blue which was rarely used by the Impressionists. The green foliage is painted in a mixture of emerald green, viridian, lead white and cadmium yellow. Cadmium yellow was not yet widely used at this time.
Ownership of the painting, part of the disputed Hugh Lane bequest, has been shared since 1959 between the National Gallery, London and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. The painting is currently in the National Gallery.
In 1956, the painting was stolen from the Tate Gallery in London by two Irish students while it was on display there in order to highlight Ireland's claim to the Hugh Lane Bequest. It was later recovered after being left anonymously at the Irish Embassy.