Berthe Morisot won over the impressionists with her talent and became the first woman of the group alongside Monet, Degas, and Renoir. She was the foremost female painter of the impressionist movement and, to quote Apollinaire, "one of the most complete artists of her day." Underestimated for more than a century, today her works demonstrate how visionary she was, pioneering a new style of painting.

Including correspondence with key members of the impressionist movement, this book focuses on the most important stages of Morisot's career: her precocious artistic talent as a child, her participation at age twenty-three in the Salon de Paris of 1864, her marriage in 1874 to Eugène Manet and the birth of their daughter, Julie--a frequent subject in Morisot's paintings--and the expressive freedom of her later works. This intimate portrait of the artist and her work is an essential reference on the impressionists.