Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Dead Toreador
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
This work originally formed the lower half of a larger composition titled Episode from a Bullfight, which Manet exhibited at the Salon of 1864. Its subject reflects the current enthusiasm for Spanish culture, though it is not a scene Manet had witnessed firsthand; his first visit to Spain would occur the following year. Critics faulted the spatial relationship and relative scale between the bull and figures in the background and the fallen toreador in the foreground. Heeding this criticism, Manet cut the canvas in two and displayed this portion with a new title at his solo exhibition in 1867.
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