Manet, Édouard (1832-1883)
Madame Manet
1874–1876
Oil on canvas, 60.6 x 50.8 cm
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Manet met his future wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, in 1850, when she arrived in his parents’ household as a piano teacher. Before their marriage, Suzanne served as the model for Manet’s first history painting, and she continued through the succeeding decades to sit for private portraits like this one, painted in the mid-1870s. Capturing the quiet beauty and famously even temper of its subject, this picture also demonstrates a new freshness and informality of handling: Manet’s response to the emerging Impressionist style, particularly the work of Berthe Morisot. (Norton Simon)
See also:
• Manet, Suzanne (1830-1906) | Moore, George Augustus (1852-1933)