This print is the most successful of Manet's several efforts to reproduce the painting of the same title that has been in the Metropolitan Museum's collection since 1889 (89.21.2). Converting brushstrokes into lines never came easily to the artist, but he wisely studied the prints of Goya, where he learned how to tone etchings with aquatint and pack together scribbled lines. Thus, when it came to etching a copy of his painting inspired by one of a court page by Velázquez, he could employ the same methods Goya had used when etching copies of Velázquez's portraits.

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