The French nineteenth-century painter Berthe Morisot (1841-95) was held by her contemporaries to be the 'quintessential Impressionist'. She was an influential member of the Impressionist group, whose exhibitions she organized with her fellow artists Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas.

A landmark tome in this field, this book considers Morisot's work in the context of the artistic and social milieu of the time. It explores the meaning of Baudelaire's famous dictum - to paint 'the heroism of modern life' - for a woman artist painting in the changing city of Paris: a very different city from the Paris of her male colleagues.