Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism

The chapter opens with a description of the painting The Balcony (1868-69) by Édouard Manet, which vividly depicts the painter Berthe Morisot on a balcony looking over the iron railing, similar to the one at the Morisot apartment at 16 rue Benjamin Franklin in Passy, a wealthy neighborhood in the 16th arrondissement (district) of Paris. The Morisots were a wealthy family that had weathered the turbulence of 19th-century France. Berthe lived there with her parents, Cornélie and Tiburce. Berthe and Édouard had met each other at the Louvre in 1868 after being introduced by a mutual friend, the painter Henri Fantin-Latour.

They had an instant connection and Édouard asked to paint Berthe in a painting modeled after Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s Majas on a Balcony. Édouard had had success in the annual Salon with previous Spanish-inspired paintings like The Spanish Singer. Berthe agreed, even though it was controversial for a wealthy woman to pose for a painting that was not a traditional portrait. Berthe was surprised to learn during the sittings that Édouard worked without any preparatory sketches. The painting was accepted to the Salon of 1869, the major annual official painting exhibition.