Before the Mirror

As mentioned in our Orsay walk, Manet is one of the great pivots in the history of art.

Trained in the classical tradition, he spent years copying the Old Masters - but broke with them more decisively than almost anyone.

He shocked Paris with Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia - two paintings that proved you could paint modern life without dressing it up in mythology.

The Impressionists - Monet, Renoir, Degas - looked up to him as the painter who had made their work possible.

Yet he declined to exhibit with them in their independent shows, preferring to keep trying for acceptance at the official Salon.

This portrait is part of a great series of modern Parisian women.

It represents a woman in a corset standing before a mirror, her back to us.

Her reflection is only suggested, not shown - the brushwork is loose, fast, confident and the stripes of the corset, her pale shoulder and the edge of the dressing table are all done with remarkable economy.

Fun fact : Manet was fascinated by mirrors throughout his career.

One of his most famous paintings, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, includes a mirror that reflects the wrong thing, a spatial impossibility that has puzzled art historians ever since!