Berthe Morisot (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) is a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who become known as the Impressionists.
She is described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.
(Geffroy, Gustave (1894), "Histoire de l'Impressionnisme", La Vie artistique: 268.)
In 1864, she exhibits for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris.
Sponsored by the government, and judged by academicians, the Salon is the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris.
Her work is selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salonsuntil, in 1874, she joins the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which include Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.
It is held at the studio of the photographer Nadar.
She becomes the sister-in-law of her friend and colleague, Édouard Manet, when she marries his brother, Eugène.
