Artist

Berthe Morisot — the painter who influenced Manet’s work

1841, Bourges — 1895, Paris
Impressionism
Timeline
1841
Born in Bourges
1860
Studied under Camille Corot
1864
First official Salon
1868
Met Édouard Manet at the Louvre
1874
Married Eugène Manet & first Impressionist exhibition
1878
Birth of her daughter Julie
1895
Death in Paris

Paris, April 15, 1874, the former studio of photographer Nadar, 35 Boulevard des Capucines. The group exhibition opening today will go down in history as the first Impressionist exhibition. Thirty artists are presenting their works there on the fringes of the official Salon. Among them are Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne. And there is only one woman: Berthe Morisot, thirty-three years old, who is exhibiting nine works, including *The Cradle*.

Today, more than 150 years later, Morisot is known to the general public—but largely through the eleven portraits that Édouard Manet painted of her between 1868 and 1874. The Balcony, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, Berthe Morisot with a Fan. Morisot’s face has become one of the most famous faces in 19th-century French painting. But her own body of work—her 416 paintings, 191 pastels, and 238 watercolors documented in the 1961 Bataille-Wildenstein catalog—remains largely unknown to the general French-speaking public.

This article reverses the perspective. It is not a portrait of the woman who posed for Manet. It is a portrait of the painter Morisot —a student of Corot, whose work was exhibited at the Salon as early as 1864, the only woman among the founding members of Impressionism, a friend of Mallarmé, and the hostess of a Parisian salon where Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Pissarro. A major 19th-century artist whom art history has long reduced to a face painted by another.

Bourges, 1841 — The Childhood of a Cultured Bourgeois Woman

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was born on January 14, 1841, in Bourges, in the Cher department. Her family belonged to the French administrative bourgeoisie. Her father, Edme-Tiburce Morisot (1806–1874), was then prefect of the Cher department —he would end his career as a referendary counselor at the Court of Auditors. Her mother, Marie-Cornélie Thomas (1819–1876), came from a family of paymasters-general.

A frequently mentioned biographical detail: Berthe was the great-grandniece of the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) on her mother’s side. The genealogical link is genuine, but there is no direct artistic lineage—Berthe never knew her great-uncle, who had died thirty-five years before her birth. Nevertheless, in 2023 the Marmottan Monet Museum dedicated an exhibition (“Berthe Morisot and 18th-Century Art”) to the influence of 18th-century art—Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Perronneau—on Morisot’s painting.

Berthe was the third of four children: her older sisters Yves (1838–1893) and Edma (1839–1921), and her younger brother Tiburce (1848–1909). The three Morisot sisters remained close throughout their lives. Edma, in particular, was Berthe’s confidante —she also painted during the 1860s, exhibited at the Salon, and then gave up painting in 1869 upon her marriage to naval officer Adolphe Pontillon.

In 1852, when Berthe was eleven years old, the family settled permanently in Paris, in the Passy neighborhood (now the 16th arrondissement). This elegant neighborhood would remain Berthe’s home for the rest of her life—she would live there, paint there, host her weekly salon there, and be buried there in the Passy Cemetery.

The Lineup — Chocarne, Guichard, Corot

At the age of sixteen, in 1857, Berthe and her sister Edma began taking drawing lessons under the guidance of Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne (1797–1859), a Neoclassical painter of the School of David. It was a traditional, austere training focused on copying the works of the old masters.

The three Morisot sisters—Yves, Edma, and Berthe—stopped briefly to visit Joseph Guichard (1806–1880), a painter from Lyon who had trained under Ingres and Delacroix. Guichard immediately recognized the exceptional talent of Berthe and Edma. In 1857, he wrote this famous letter to their mother:

“In the upper-class circle in which you live, this will be a revolution—I would almost call it a catastrophe. Are you sure you’ll never curse the day when art, having entered your respectable and peaceful home, became the sole arbiter of the fate of two of your children?”

— Joseph Guichard, letter to Marie-Cornélie Morisot, 1857

Marie-Cornélie agreed. Berthe and Edma continued their training. In 1859–1860, the sisters set up their outdoor studio in Ville-d’Avray under the guidance of Camille Corot (1796–1875), the undisputed master of mid-19th-century French landscape painting. Corot taught them plein air painting, the rendering of light, and direct observation of the subject. This training shaped Berthe’s style for the rest of her life: a light palette, a free brushstroke, and light as a subject in its own right.

Berthe made copies at the Louvre between 1858 and 1864—works by Veronese, Rubens, and Titian. It was in these rooms at the Louvre, while copying a work by Rubens, that she had the life-changing encounter of her life in 1868.

1864–1867 — The First Salons

Berthe was twenty-three years old when she submitted her first two paintings to the official Salon of 1864. The two works— Old Road in Auvers and Memories of the Banks of the Oise — were accepted by the jury. She was listed in the catalog as “a student of Joseph Guichard and Achille-François Oudinot.” This marked her first official success.

Berthe exhibited regularly at the Salon between 1864 and 1873—seven consecutive Salons. The works she presented during this early period were primarily landscapes in the style of Corot, painted in Auvers-sur-Oise (where her family spent their summers beginning in 1863) and in the Parisian countryside.

This early period was that of an established painter at the official Salon —not that of a rebel or an outsider. Berthe Morisot followed the established path. She was respected by her male peers, notably by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904), whom she met at the Louvre around 1861–1862 while he was copying the old masters.

Fantin-Latour wasthe loyal friend who introduced Berthe to the circle of avant-garde Parisian painters. It was he who, in 1868, introduced her toÉdouard Manet —an encounter that would change her artistic life.

1868 — Meeting Manet at the Louvre

It was Henri Fantin-Latour who introduced Berthe Morisot to Édouard Manet in the spring of 1868, in a room at the Louvre.

Berthe is copying The Pilgrims of Emmaus by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Fantin-Latour walks past the room with Manet, spots Berthe, and introduces them.

Berthe was twenty-seven; Manet was thirty-six. She was single; he had been married to Suzanne Leenhoff since 1863. Their encounter was immediately pivotal—not romantically (commentators have long speculated about their relationship, but nothing in their correspondence suggests an affair), but artistically and intellectually.

Manet introduced Berthe to his Parisian artistic circle. She began frequenting the Café Guerbois (on Avenue de Clichy), a gathering place for the future Impressionists—Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Bazille, Degas, and Zola. She listened in on passionate conversations about modern painting. She met the generation that would transform French painting.

This encounter also marked the beginning of the series of portraits. As early as the summer of 1868, Manet asked Berthe to pose for a painting he intended to exhibit at the 1869 Salon: it would be *The Balcony*.

The Eleven Portraits by Manet

Between 1868 and 1874, Édouard Manet painted eleven portraits of Berthe Morisot. These eleven paintings have become major works of 19th-century French painting.

The Balcony (1868–1869, Musée d’Orsay) is the first. Berthe is seated in the foreground, dressed in white, gazing intently at the viewer. Behind her are Fanny Claus (violinist and model) and Antoine Guillemet (landscape painter). The painting was exhibited at the 1869 Official Salon and caused a stir due to Berthe’s frontal and silent presence.

Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872, Musée d’Orsay) is probably his most famous portrait. Berthe is depicted from the waist up, dressed in black, wearing a black hat with feathers, and holding a bouquet of violets tucked into the neckline of her dress. Her gaze is intense, almost melancholic. Manet uses a limited palette, dominated by deep blacks. It is a tribute to Velázquez —a painter whom Manet revered—as much as it is to his model.

Berthe Morisot with a Fan (1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille) depicts Berthe sitting, slightly leaning forward, a black fan half-open in her hand. Her face appears more at ease. Manet painted his sister-in-law—for her marriage to Eugène Manet took place in December 1874.

The other eight portraits are more intimate studies: *Berthe Morisot Reclining* (1873), *Berthe Morisot Lying Down* (1873, private collection), *Berthe Morisot with a Black Hat and Veil* (1872), and several small portraits or sketches.

This series also came to an abrupt end in 1874 —the year of her marriage. Édouard painted no portraits of Berthe after her marriage to Eugène. Several theories have been put forward: a change in family status (Berthe had become his sister-in-law), deference to the new marriage, or simply a natural evolution in Manet’s subject matter. Correspondence from that period offers no clear answer.

December 1874 — her marriage to Eugène Manet

Eugène Manet (1833–1892) was Édouard’s younger brother. Born on November 21, 1833, he was the second son of Judge Auguste Manet and Marie-Eugénie Désirée Fournier. Eugène was two years older than Berthe. He, too, studied law. He, too, painted—but without his older brother’s passion or talent. He published a novel in 1889 (*Victimes*), a testament to a life devoted more to writing and supporting his wife than to painting.

Berthe and Eugène met through Édouard in 1872–1873. Eugène was madly in love with Berthe almost from the moment they met. Berthe hesitated—she was thirty-three, which was considered quite old for a first marriage at the time, and she had recently been mourning the loss of her father (who died in 1874).

The wedding took place on December 22, 1874, at the Passy town hall and then at the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce church. It was a simple ceremony attended by family members. Édouard Manet served as a witness.

Eugène gave the couple his full support for Berthe’s career. He did not hold her back in any way—on the contrary, heactively encouraged her to continue painting. According to correspondence from that time, Eugène devoted a significant portion of his time to managing the household’s practical affairs so that Berthe could paint freely. He even helped draft business correspondence with art dealers.

This unconventional marriage for its time —a husband who actively took a back seat to support his wife’s career as an artist—goes a long way toward explaining why Berthe Morisot was able to maintain a prolific body of work throughout her eighteen years of marriage.

January 1875: The couple went on their honeymoon to England, tothe Isle of Wight. Berthe painted there Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight (1875, Musée Marmottan Monet)—one of her most famous portraits, and an exceptional historical symmetry: Édouard Manet painted eleven portraits of Berthe, while Berthe painted Eugène.

April 1874 — the first Impressionist exhibition

Four months before her marriage to Eugène, in April 1874, Berthe Morisot made a decision that would prove pivotal to her artistic career. She agreed to participate in the “Société anonyme coopérative d’artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs” —the official name of what would go down in history as the first Impressionist exhibition.

The exhibition opened on April 15, 1874, in the former studio of photographer Nadar at 35 Boulevard des Capucines. A total of 165 works by 30 artists were on display, including Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Cézanne, Boudin —and Berthe Morisot, the only woman among the founders.

Berthe is exhibiting nine works, including:

  • The Cradle (1872, Musée d’Orsay) — his sister Edma watching over her daughter Blanche, born a few months earlier
  • Reading (1873, Musée d’Orsay) — another portrait of Edma
  • The Port of Cherbourg (1871, Marmottan Monet Museum)
  • Hide-and-Seek (1873, private collection)

The exhibition was a partial critical failure —it was from Monet and his painting *Impression, Sunrise* that the mocking term “Impressionists” was derived by the critic Louis Leroy in *Le Charivari* on April 25, 1874. But the press treated Berthe with unusual respect. Several critics singled out her works for their sensitivity and mastery.

For Berthe, the decision to leave the official Salon to exhibit on the fringes alongside the young Impressionists—even though she had been a regular and accepted exhibitor at the Salon since 1864 —was an act of courage. She abandoned institutional security to join a movement whose contours were still unclear, led by young men little known to the general public.

Seven out of eight exhibitions—total commitment

Beginning in 1874, Berthe Morisot became fully involved in the Impressionist movement. She participated in seven of the group’s eight official exhibitions.

Seven out of eight exhibitions. He missed only the 1879 exhibition, following the birth of his daughter Julie Manet on November 14, 1878.

This loyalty to the Impressionist movement is all the more remarkable given that several founding members had withdrawn or missed several exhibitions:

  • Édouard Manet: did not participate in any of the eight exhibitions (he preferred the official Salon)
  • Claude Monet: missed 1879 and 1881
  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir: missed 1879, 1881, 1882
  • Paul Cézanne: participated only in 1874 and 1877

Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro were the two artists most committed to the movement. Pissarro participated in all eight exhibitions without exception; Berthe participated in seven out of eight.

In 1881, the critic Gustave Geffroy published a long, glowing article about the Impressionist exhibition in the April 19 issue of *La Justice*, paying particular attention to the works of Berthe Morisot:

“Ms. Berthe Morizot [sic] is undoubtedly the only one among all the exhibitors who strives for—and has mastered—that lightness of touch that transforms a painting into an evocation of fleeting moments.”

— Gustave Geffroy, *La Justice*, April 19, 1881*

This loyalty makes her, in fact, a full-fledged co-founder of the Impressionist movement—not merely a fellow traveler.

A Life of Salons and Thursdays

Starting in the 1880s, Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet hosted a weekly salon every Thursday in their apartment on Rue de Villejust (now Rue Paul-Valéry, 16th arrondissement).

According to letters and recollections from that time, the following people were regularly seen there:

  • Edgar Degas — the most sullen of the group, but always faithful to Berthe’s Thursday gatherings
  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir — the most sociable of the group, who would later paint several portraits of Julie Manet
  • Claude Monet — who came from Giverny during his trips to Paris
  • Camille Pissarro — a longtime Impressionist colleague
  • Gustave Caillebotte — painter and discreet patron of the group
  • Stéphane Mallarmé —who became Berthe’s closest friend starting in the mid-1870s

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) played a special role in Berthe Morisot’s life. A Symbolist poet known for his cryptic writing, a translator of Edgar Allan Poe, and an English teacher at the Lycée Fontanes, Mallarmé became the foremost literary admirer of Berthe’s paintings. He wrote about her, dedicated texts to her, and—upon her death in 1895—served as her executor, overseeing the disposition of her work.

The Thursday gatherings continued for fifteen years (1880–1895), interrupted only by summer trips (to Vétheuil, Mézy, and Cimiez) and by Eugène’s death in 1892.

Eugène, Julie, and Family Life

November 14, 1878: Julie Manet, the only daughter of Berthe and Eugène, was born in Paris. Berthe was thirty-seven at the time. She embraced motherhood with passion, and Julie would become a recurring subject in Morisot’s paintings throughout the latter part of her career—dozens of documented portraits capturing every stage of her childhood and adolescence.

April 1892:Eugène Manet died after a long illness. Berthe was fifty-one years old. She was devastated. Eugène had been her artistic partner as well as her husband for eighteen years. Berthe then turned to Julie, who was thirteen, and to her painting.

The next three years were marked by an intensification of her painting output. She painted numerous portraits of Julie as a teenager, landscapes in Mézy (Yvelines), where she had bought a country house, and organized a major solo exhibition at Boussod-Valadon in May–June 1892—her first retrospective during her lifetime.

Winter 1894–1895: Julie became seriously ill with the flu. Berthe had been nursing her for weeks. Julie recovered. But Berthe, in turn, contracted the illness, which developed into pulmonary congestion.

Berthe Morisot died on March 2, 1895, in Paris, on Rue de Villejust, in her apartment, at the age of fifty-four. Her daughter Julie was sixteen years old. She was immediately taken in by Stéphane Mallarmé and her brother Tiburce Morisot—her immediate family ran the orphanage.

Berthe is buried at the Passy Cemetery, in the Manet family vault, alongside Édouard and Eugène Manet —the two brothers who were part of her artistic and romantic life.

Posterity—forgotten and then rediscovered

A year after Berthe’s death, in March 1896, her closest Impressionist friends — Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Stéphane Mallarmé —organized a major retrospective exhibition of her work at the Galerie Boussod, Valadon & Cie. Three hundred works were brought together. Mallarmé wrote the preface to the catalog, a short but essential text:

“This great artist, this woman, lived out her magnificent destiny through painting—living apart from the world to paint better, and behind her art, yet also portrayed by everyone around her.”

— Stéphane Mallarmé, preface to the catalog for the Boussod, Valadon & Cie exhibition, March 1896

This first retrospective marked Berthe Morisot’s institutional recognition within the art world. But beyond that limited circle, her work fell into relative obscurity during the 20th century.

Several factors account for this shift to the background:

— The dispersal of the artist’s work among private family collections —notably that of his daughter Julie, who married the painter Ernest Rouart (1874–1942) in 1900 and carefully preserved the collection.

—The absence of her works from major public museums for decades. The Marmottan Monet Museum, which today holds about 80 works by Berthe (the world’s largest collection), did not receive its main bequest until 1993 with the bequest from Annie Rouart (Berthe’s granddaughter).

— The status of women in a history of art that was largely written by men for most of the 20th century.

The rediscovery began at the end of the 20th century:

  • 1941: Retrospective exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie, with a preface by Paul Valéry —a seminal text marking the artist’s institutional recognition in France
  • 1987–1988: major traveling exhibition in the United States (National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fort Worth; South Hadley)
  • 2002: Retrospective exhibition in Lille and Martigny (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille and Fondation Gianadda)
  • 2019: Retrospective exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay : Berthe Morisot, an Impressionist Woman
  • 2023: Marmottan Monet Exhibition: Berthe Morisot and 18th-Century Art

Today, Berthe Morisot is widely recognized as one of the leading figures of the Impressionist movement—on par with Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Degas.

How to View His Works

  • Marmottan Monet Museum, Paris — the world’s premier collection. Approximately 80 works by Berthe Morisot, thanks to successive bequests from her descendants: the 1940 bequest from Eugène and Victorine Donop de Monchy, and the 1993 bequest from Annie Rouart (Berthe’s granddaughter). Houses theSelf-Portrait (1885), Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight (1875), Woman with a Fan (1875), The Port of Cherbourg (1871), dozens of portraits of Julie and landscapes.
  • Musée d’Orsay, Paris — houses, among other things, *The Cradle* (1872), The Butterfly Hunt (1874), Young Woman Applying Powder (1877), The Garden at Bougival (1884).
  • National Gallery of Art, Washington — extensive collection, including The Artist’s Sister at a Window (1869).
  • Lille Museum of Fine Arts — houses Berthe Morisot with a Fan by Édouard Manet (1874) — a portrait of Berthe by her brother-in-law.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — several major works.
  • To view the complete documented body of work: the 1961 Bataille-Wildenstein catalog raisonné (416 paintings, 191 pastels, 238 watercolors) remains the definitive reference.

Further Reading

Institutional sources cited

  • Marie-Louise Bataille and Georges Wildenstein, *Berthe Morisot: A Catalog Raisonné of Paintings, Pastels, and Watercolors*, with an introduction by Denis Rouart, Paris, Les Beaux-Arts, 1961. The definitive catalog raisonné.
  • Marmottan Monet Museum, official fact sheets. The institution that houses the world’s largest collection.
  • Musée d’Orsay, official fact sheets.
  • Berthe Morisot and 18th-Century Art, exhibition catalog from the Musée Marmottan Monet, 2023.
  • Berthe Morisot, Impressionist Woman, exhibition catalog from the Musée d’Orsay, 2019.

Primary sources cited

  • Joseph Guichard, letter to Marie-Cornélie Morisot, 1857.
  • Gustave Geffroy, article on the Impressionist exhibition, *La Justice*, April 19, 1881.
  • Stéphane Mallarmé, preface to the catalog for the retrospective exhibition “Boussod, Valadon & Cie,” March 1896.

Leading Modern Studies

  • Anne Higonnet, Berthe Morisot, Adam Biro, Paris, 1989. A standard biography.
  • Jean-Dominique Rey, Berthe Morisot: 1841–1895, Éditions Hazan, Paris, 2012.
  • Charles F. Stuckey, William P. Scott, and Suzanne G. Lindsay, *Berthe Morisot, Impressionist*, Hudson Hills Press, 1987.

Sources and Family Journals

  • Julie Manet, *Journal* (1893–1899), Klincksieck, Paris, 1979. The personal diary of Berthe Morisot’s daughter.

Institutional Documentation

See also on Hors Cadre

— M