Darmesteter was born in London as the daughter of a French school teacher and the editor of the first Jewish women's periodical, Marion Hartog Moss.

She later studied painting in Paris under Gustave Courtois,[2] where she met her husband Arsène Darmesteter.

She became a successful portrait painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1891 and 1894 and at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.

[2] Cécile Hartog, Her self-portrait and a study of a woman before a mirror were included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World.

[4] This article about a British painter born in the 19th century is a stub.