Morisot was the daughter of a top civil servant and a great- niece of the rococo painter Fragonard. She took lessons and learned to draw in 1857. She had met Fantin-Latour, the famous French painter who painted " A Studio in Batignolles". In 1860-1862 Morisot was the pupil of Corot, with her sister Edma. Corot advised her to go to Auvers-Sur-Oise and learn to paint plein-air, where she met Daubigny. In 1868 she became friends with Manet, who gave her advice and painted her portrait, in the well known "Repose" and "The Balcony". She worked in both oil and watercolor.

Morisot was the first woman to join the circle of the French impressionist painters, and she exhibited at all but one of the Impressionist exhibitions. She married Eugène Manet, Edouard Manet's brother, in 1874. In 1881-1883, she built a house in Paris, which became a weekly meeting place for painters and writers, such as Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, Monet, Pissarro and Whistler. Puvis de Chavannes, Duret, Renoir and the poet Mallarme also visited her - Mallarme became her closest friend and greatest admirer. She bought a chateau in Mesmil in 1892, her husband died the same year. After Morisot's death in 1895, a large memorial exhibition was held at Durand-Ruel's with 300 of her paintings. The introduction to the exhibition catalog was written by Mallarme. Morisot made an important contribution to Impressionism with her bright and delicate impressions of domestic life. Berthe Morisot and American artist Mary Cassatt are generally considered the most important women painters of the later 19th century.