Under the Lamp ("Once upon a midnight dreary..."), from The Raven (Le Corbeau)1875
“Once upon a midnight dreary”: the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven sits under the lamp among his books in the first of Manet’s illustrations to the poem. More about this work
About this work
“Once upon a midnight dreary”: the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven sits under the lamp among his books in the first of Manet’s illustrations to the poem. In 1875 the poet Stéphane Mallarmé published his French translation, Le Corbeau, in a large-format edition with Manet’s images. Manet drew them with brush and ink on transfer paper, and the sweeping, almost improvised black strokes, printed as lithographs, catch the poem’s nocturnal mood with a freedom close to ink painting.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
A work made of transfer lithograph in black on gray china paper.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Lithograph
- Drawn on limestone with a greasy crayon or ink. The stone is kept damp, and the oily printing ink clings only to the drawing. Invented in the 1790s, it let artists print exactly as they drew.
Édouard Manet
French, 1832–1883 · Born and died in Paris.
Manet came from a prosperous Parisian family, trained under Thomas Couture and studied the old masters, Velázquez above all. In the 1860s he provoked critics with Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia, modern subjects painted in flat, frank colour with little modelling. Though he never showed with the Impressionists, younger painters looked to him as a leader, and in his last years he painted Parisian café life and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1945.52.3
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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