Polichinelle
Edouard Manet French
Verses written by Théodore de Banville French
Sitter Patrice de MacMahon French
Not on view
This work stands apart in Manet’s oeuvre as his only experiment with color lithography and as an overt political caricature. Censored by the Third Republic government, it cast the recently elected president, Patrice de MacMahon, who had directed the brutal suppression of the Paris Commune, as Polichinelle, a character derived from the commedia dell’arte known for his self-interest. Degas bought an impression of the print at the auction he co-organized with Manet and Antoine Guillemet to benefit the widow of their friend the writer Edmond Duranty in 1881. A photograph on view nearby shows it hanging on the wall of Degas’s living room in the 1890s.
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