Young Lady in 1866

1866
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 810
Manet’s model, Victorine Meurent, had recently posed as the brazen nudes in Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass (both Musée d’Orsay, Paris). Here, appearing relatively demure, she flaunts an intimate silk dressing gown. Critics eyed the painting as a rejoinder to Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot (29.100.57) and as indicative of Manet’s "current vice" of failing to "value a head more than a slipper." Recent scholars have interpreted it as an allegory of the five senses: the nosegay (smell), the orange (taste), the parrot-confidant (hearing), and the man’s monocle she fingers (sight and touch). 

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Young Lady in 1866
  • Artist: Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)
  • Date: 1866
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 72 7/8 x 50 5/8 in. (185.1 x 128.6 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Erwin Davis, 1889
  • Object Number: 89.21.3
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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6146. Young Lady in 1866

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