Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Nana
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
At the end of Émile Zola’s novel L’assommoir, a character named Nana appears, having been thrust into prostitution. In Zola’s Nana, published a few years later, she has become a high-class courtesan, as Manet portrays her here. Nana addresses the viewer with a mischievous smile while applying her makeup. She is the protagonist, anchored at the center of the picture, while her patron—cast as a supporting character—looks on from the margin. As the model for Nana, Manet turned to Henriette Hauser, the mistress of the Prince of Orange and an aspiring actress, whom he had painted before. Rejected at the 1877 Salon, the painting was exhibited in the window of Chez Giroux, a shop selling “trinkets, paintings and fans,” where it was a great success.
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