1868, Edouard Manet, Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus -- Ashmolean Museum (Oxford)
From the museum label: The Portrait of Mlle Claus was painted in the autumn of 1868. It is closely connected with one of Manet's greatest masterpieces, The Balcony, exhibited in Paris in 1869 and now in the Musée d'Orsay. The composition is heavily indebted to Goya's Majas on the Balcony which Manet would have known from an illustration in a book on Goya, published in 1867.
Fanny Claus (1846-1877), the seated figure in the Ashmolean painting, was a concert violinist and a friend of Suzanne Leenhof, Manet's wife. The figure, sketchily indicated on the right, is Berthe Morisot, who was an accomplished artist and later married Manet's brother, Eugène. In the final painting, Morisot is shown seated at the centre and Fanny Claus stands beside her.
At an early stage, Manet set aside this sketch and began work on the second canvas. The sketch remained in Manet's studio and was bought at Manet's sale in 1884 by the American portrait painter, John Singer Sargent, whose own work was much influenced by Manet's.
Link to other Manet paintings.
1868, Edouard Manet, Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus -- Ashmolean Museum (Oxford)
From the museum label: The Portrait of Mlle Claus was painted in the autumn of 1868. It is closely connected with one of Manet's greatest masterpieces, The Balcony, exhibited in Paris in 1869 and now in the Musée d'Orsay. The composition is heavily indebted to Goya's Majas on the Balcony which Manet would have known from an illustration in a book on Goya, published in 1867.
Fanny Claus (1846-1877), the seated figure in the Ashmolean painting, was a concert violinist and a friend of Suzanne Leenhof, Manet's wife. The figure, sketchily indicated on the right, is Berthe Morisot, who was an accomplished artist and later married Manet's brother, Eugène. In the final painting, Morisot is shown seated at the centre and Fanny Claus stands beside her.
At an early stage, Manet set aside this sketch and began work on the second canvas. The sketch remained in Manet's studio and was bought at Manet's sale in 1884 by the American portrait painter, John Singer Sargent, whose own work was much influenced by Manet's.
Link to other Manet paintings.