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Boy with a Sword

1861
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 810

Manet’s stepson, Léon Koëlla-Leenhoff, recalled that he had posed for this picture in 1861, when he was about ten years old. Manet dressed him in a seventeenth-century costume, adding a period sword as a prop—a tribute to the great Spanish painters he admired, notably Velázquez. Critics reviewed the work favorably on the five occasions that Manet exhibited it between 1862 and 1872.

In 1889, the New York collector Erwin Davis donated Boy with a Sword and Young Lady in 1866 (89.21.3) to the Metropolitan; they were the first works by Manet to enter a museum collection.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Boy with a Sword
  • Artist: Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)
  • Date: 1861
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 51 5/8 x 36 3/4 in. (131.1 x 93.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Erwin Davis, 1889
  • Object Number: 89.21.2
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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Cat and Flowers, Edouard Manet French, Etching and aquatint; third (final) state; posthumous edition
Cat and Flowers
Edouard Manet
1869
The Smoker (Le Fumeur), Edouard Manet French, Etching on blue laid paper, final state (II)
The Smoker (Le Fumeur)
Edouard Manet
1866–67
Boy with Soap Bubbles, Edouard Manet French, Etching, lavis aquatint, and roulette on laid paper, second state of four
Boy with Soap Bubbles
Edouard Manet
1867–69
The Smoker (Le Fumeur), Edouard Manet French, Etching and drypoint on blue laid paper, only state
The Smoker (Le Fumeur)
Edouard Manet
1879–82
The Water Drinker, Edouard Manet French, Etching and drypoint
The Water Drinker
Edouard Manet
1870–74

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