Morisot, Berthe Marie Pauline

French painter, the first woman to join the Impressionist movement. Taught by Corot, she was also much influenced by Manet and, in the 1880s, Renoir. She specialized in sensitive pictures of women and children, as in The Cradle (1872; Impressionist Museum, Paris).

Born into a wealthy family in Bourges, she was granddaughter of the rococo artist Fragonard. She exhibited in all the Impressionist exhibitions, except that of 1879. Strongly encouraged by Manet, whose brother she married, it was she who persuaded Manet to paint out of doors.