Mendiant avec des huîtres, Le Philosophe (1865-1867)

Manet, Édouard (1832-1883)

Mendiant avec des huîtres, Le Philosophe (Beggar with Oysters, Philosopher)
18651867
Oil on canvas, 188 × 111 cm
Art Institute of ChicagoChicago

By age 30, Édouard Manet had gained recognition at the state-sponsored Salon exhibition in Paris and established himself as the artist to watch, creating new imagery for contemporary works that translated Old Master painting into a modern idiom. Here he looked to the 17th-century Baroque artist Diego Velázquez, whose two paintings of world-weary philosophers (Aesop and Menippus, both c. 1638) Manet had admired that year at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. Like Velázquez’s representation of the ancient stoics (whose poverty is associated with wisdom), Manet’s beggar-philosophers fit into the popular notion of the social outcast as a seer possessing rare insight. This painting and Beggar with a Duffle Coat were probably conceived as companion pieces. (AIC)

Compare:

Manet, Édouard (1832-1883)
Mendiant en manteau, Le Philosophe
18651867
Art Institute of ChicagoChicago