One of the first works to greet you in this groundbreaking exhibition depicts a parent and child playing together in a garden dotted with pink roses. The painting is by the child’s other parent: her mother, Berthe Morisot. Morisot’s husband, Eugène Manet, is looking after their daughter Julie while his wife works, and the pair are doubling up as his models.
How unusual that it is this way round; much more familiar is the male artist depicting his female partner. Impressionism, now 150 years old — its first show was in Paris in 1874 — was revolutionary in so many ways: subject matter, painting technique, colours, tone. And yet its headliners were all men. Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Degas, Édouard Manet (Morisot’s brother-in-law); these are the
