Collection: Berthe Morisot
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (14 January 1841 – 2 March 1895) was a French painter, printmaker and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris, listed as a student of Joseph Guichard and Achille-Francois Oudinot.
Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions (15 April – 15 May 1874), which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar.
Morisot went on to participate in all but one of the following eight impressionist exhibitions, between 1874 and 1886. Morisot was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet. She was described by art critic Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" (The three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.
Joseph Guichard and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot taught her. Her work was influenced by Édouard Manet and Stéphane Mallarmé. Her best-known works include Eugène Manet on Isle of Wight, The Psyche mirror, The Cradle, and The Port at Lorient. She focused on portrait painting and landscape painting.
