Manet, Édouard (1832-1883)
Les funérailles (The Funeral)
c.1867
Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 90.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Manet’s unfinished painting is thought to depict the funeral of the writer Charles Baudelaire, which took place on September 2, 1867. The artist, unlike other friends who had yet to return from vacation or stayed away owing to the threatening summer storm, was among the few mourners present. This view of the meager funeral cortège at the foot of the Butte Mouffetard, a hill in southwest Paris, is framed by the silhouettes of the towers and cupolas of the Val de Grâce, the Panthéon, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, and the Tour de Clovis in the background. Manet kept the picture until his death. In 1894 Pissarro acquired it in exchange for one of his own landscapes. (MET)
See also:
• Baudelaire, Charles (1821-1867)