The butterfly hunt

1870–1874

The watercolour years

Oil painting is still difficult for Morisot and she works mostly in watercolour: her palette is restrained, the delicate repetition of hues creates a balanced effect, and the translucent atmosphere and feathery touch give her pictures their freshness.

1872

Durand-Ruel buys twenty-two paintings

Morisot's mature career begins in 1872: she finds an audience in the private dealer Durand-Ruel, who buys twenty-two of her paintings.

15 April – 15 May 1874

The first Impressionist exhibition: the only woman

The Salon rejects a work by Morisot — for the last time: she never submits anything to it again. Instead she joins the “rejected” painters — Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley — at their first exhibition, in the studio of the photographer Nadar, showing ten works and remaining the only woman among the exhibitors; the Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff writes of “five or six lunatics, one of whom is a woman”.

1874

Marriage to Eugène Manet

In 1874 Morisot marries Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet. She goes on exhibiting under her full maiden name, using neither a pseudonym nor her married name.

1875

The best prices at the Hôtel Drouot auction

At the Hôtel Drouot auction in 1875 Morisot achieves the two highest prices: “Interior (Young Woman with Mirror)” sells for 480 francs and her pastel “On the Lawn” for 320; her works average 250 francs, the best relative prices at the sale.

1875–1885

Oil, watercolour and pastel at once

Grown more confident in oil, Morisot, like Degas, works in oil, watercolour and pastel at the same time. She paints very quickly but prepares with countless studies, so that she can paint “a mouth, eyes, and a nose with a single brushstroke”.