Edouard Manet

Eva Gonzalès, Paris
Henri Guérard, Paris (a gift from the above)

Regular customers of the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes in Paris between 1877 and 1879, Edouard Manet, Jean Richepin and the eccentric yet talented Jean de Cabanès, know as Cabaner, would frequently meet there. The turmoil following the Franco-Prussian War led these men to share their concerns about an unsure world and the direction art should henceforth take. Sometimes these gatherings would result in collective projects, the present being an important example of such a collaboration. This drawing was intended to illustrate the score to Les Mendiants, a song written by Cabaner based on Richepin's lyrics. Though the composition appears not to have been retained for the final printed score, the present work is in fact executed on the back of the sheet printed with Cabaner's music.

Undoubtedly injured in the war of 1870, this disabled man is presented to us from the back, hunched over, wearing a blue collared working shirt and a cap. The theme of war reoccurs in another of Manet's painting, La Rue Mosnier aux Drapeaux, (fig. 1) in which the same character reappears. With the depiction of national flags and celebrations, this oil celebrates the achievements of the soldier, through his debilitating injury; exposing the two faces of war (Bradford R. Collins, "Manet's 'Rue Mosnier decked with flags' and the Flâneur concept", Burlington Magazine, November 1975, p. 713).

Fig. I  Edouard Manet, La Rue Mosnier aux Drapeaux, 1878, oil on canvas, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles