Anne Higonnet's biography of the artist Berthe Morisot is everything a biography should be. It traces the story of the artist's life, balancing the sort of details the reader would want to know about Morisot with the wider world of nineteenth century Paris - and the Impressionist movement that Morisot was instrumental in helping to launch.

For a century Morisot's legacy lay in tatters. Demoted to an also-ran in the art world, on account solely of her gender, there was a danger that her magnificent work would eventually be forgotten entirely. Luckily her more recent biographers have seen fit to return her to the place she once held, right at the centre of the movement that truly revolutionised the world of art. ( )