But that’s not what is so provocative about this show. Emily Beeny, the Legion of Honor’s chief curator, contends that although Manet gave Morisot essential encouragement and validation, she ultimately became his peer—as well as his sister-in-law. In Beeny’s show, Morisot is as much of an artistic interlocutor of Manet as, say, Degas was. There’s an unexplored sidenote here in the fact that Degas and Morisot were also friends: In fact, Degas convinced Morisot to join the impressionist group that exhibited outside the official salon—a move that Manet, while sympathetic to the impressionists, was never willing to make himself.

In some ways, when Morisot became a pillar of the impressionist group, she was asserting her independence and self-confidence. “From the dawn of impressionism,” noted Beeny, “critics mistook Morisot for Manet’s pupil, whether intending to flatter or denigrate, and many 20th century historians of impressionism reduced this complex relationship to the extraordinary pictures Manet painted of Morisot between 1868 and 1874, overlooking (or indeed disparaging) her work and casting her as a model or muse.”

Human nature being what it is, many have tried to invent an emotional or sexual connection between the two. But their real relationship is far more interesting. Citing both Manet’s first biographers and recent feminist scholarship, Beeny explained that “as Morisot’s work became more daring and garnered widespread acclaim, Manet began to follow her example, emulating her choice of subjects, her high-key colors, and, most especially, her rapid fluttering brushstrokes.” The social constraints that surrounded the deeply bourgeois and respectable Morisot meant she was excluded from painting the modern life that Manet experienced in cafés and brothels, and on the evanescent street scenes of Paris. She had to make do with her “world of private interiors and leafy parks, of middle-class women, their children, and their domestic employees.”

As Manet began to succumb to the ravages of syphilis, his world contracted. The Paris of an invalid was not so different from that of a respectable lady. Which isn’t to say that Manet took inspiration from Morisot’s subject matter only after he became ill. Indeed, the show—which includes many important pictures from Manet/Degas, like the seminal Balcony that features Morisot as a model—traces a complex call-and-response between the two artists over 15 years.