Young Lady in 18661866
A young woman in a flowing pink dressing gown stands beside a parrot on its perch, raising a small bunch of violets to her face, with a monocle on a ribbon in her other hand and a half-peeled orange on the floor. More about this work
About this work
A young woman in a flowing pink dressing gown stands beside a parrot on its perch, raising a small bunch of violets to her face, with a monocle on a ribbon in her other hand and a half-peeled orange on the floor. The model was Victorine Meurent, who also posed for Manet’s Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. The painting answered Gustave Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot, shown in the same year, by replacing a voluptuous nude with a fully clothed figure, and its details have been read as references to the five senses. Against the plain grey-brown background the pinks and greens sing out.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
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 Met 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
- 89.21.3
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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