Berthe Morisot
One of the Morisot family's homes on what was then the rue Franklin, in Passy, during the years when Berthe and Edma Morisot were training as painters.
12 rue Benjamin-Franklin
Still standing
Outside only
A building
One of the Morisot family's Passy addresses during the years when Berthe and Edma Morisot were training as painters, a few doors from the house where their garden studio was built.
- 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin, 75016 Paris
- A Morisot family address during the sisters' early training
Illustration
The place, briefly
The Morisot family lived at more than one address on this short Passy street, and this was one of them during the period when Berthe Morisot and her sister Edma were serving what amounted to an apprenticeship — copying, taking lessons, and working outdoors under Camille Corot, who taught them both.
Passy in this period was still slightly outside the city proper in feeling: quieter, greener and more respectable than the quarters where the male painters of the same generation were living. Morisot's Paris is a different Paris from Manet's or Degas's, and the difference shows in the work, which is largely made of gardens, interiors, women and children — the world she was actually permitted to move through.
The building is private, and the street, then the rue Franklin, is now the rue Benjamin-Franklin.
Key facts
- rue Franklin
- Passy, 16th arrondissement
- Camille Corot taught both Morisot sisters
- Private — exterior only
In images
Timeline
The Morisot family lives on the rue Franklin while the sisters train as painters.
On the map
Questions before you go
Why are there two Morisot addresses on the same street?
The family lived at more than one house on the rue Franklin, now the rue Benjamin-Franklin. The studio built in the garden for Berthe and Edma was at number 16.
Who taught Berthe Morisot?
Camille Corot was her most important teacher, and she also trained by copying in the Louvre, where she met Édouard Manet in 1868.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
16 rue Benjamin-Franklin
The Morisot family house in Passy where a studio was built in the garden for Berthe and her sister Edma — an unusually serious commitment to two daughters' painting for a bourgeois family of the 1860s.
Visit the place
Passy Cemetery
The small, wealthy cemetery beside the Trocadéro where Édouard Manet is buried in the family tomb — together with his brother Eugène and Eugène's wife, the painter Berthe Morisot.
Visit the place
4 villa Eugène-Manuel
The Passy house with a large studio window that Marc Chagall took in the 1930s — twenty years and a world away from the unheated rotunda at La Ruche.
Visit the place
Champ-de-Mars
The great park below the Eiffel Tower, and the site of the 1889 Exposition Universelle — where Claude Debussy heard Javanese gamelan for the first time and never entirely got over it.
Visit the placeReferences
References
The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.
1Berthe Morisot's Garden
WebsiteAmerican Girls Art Club in ParisUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin page.
2Berthe Morisot — Artist Profile
WebsiteNational Museum of Women in the ArtsUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin page.
3Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)
WebsiteMusée d'OrsayUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin page.
4Berthe Morisot — Musée Marmottan Monet
WebsiteMusée Marmottan MonetUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 12 rue Benjamin-Franklin page.
i
Why these sources are here
These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
Explore more resourcesNewsletter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.