Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was born in Bourges, Cher, France to an affluent bourgeois family. Her father was a government official and her mother was the great niece of Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. She had two older sisters and a younger brother. At age 11 she moved to Paris, France with her family.
Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma initially started taking art lessons in order to make a drawing for their father’s birthday. It was common for daughters of the bourgeois to receive art education. They received private lessons by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocame and Joseph Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins. In 1857 Guichard introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre Gallery. Unmarried women at that time weren’t allowed to leave home unchaperoned or receive formal training, but with the guidance of Guichard, Berthe and Edma were able to learn through copying the paintings at the museum.
Through their time at the museum, they became friends with fellow artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet. Berthe and Edma studied together until 1859 when Edma got married and moved away with her husband. In 1874, Berthe married Eugene Manet (Edouard’s brother) and in 1878 had her daughter Julie who she portrayed often in her paintings.