Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Café-Concert
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
Manet chose to depict the crowd at the Cabaret de Reichshoffen, offering only a glimpse of the main attraction, the singer Elsa La Polonaise, who is reflected in a mirror in the upper left corner. Composed almost entirely of cropped and overlapping figures, the painting calls attention to the diverse mix of people at the café-concert, including a working-class woman with a cigarette at left, a waitress mid-drink just behind, and a bourgeois gentleman at right. Despite the cramped environment, there is no social interaction among these figures, who all look in different directions.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
