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"Portrait of Eva Gonzales" №23866
Art. number: 23866
Description
Eva Gonzalès was born in Paris into the family of the writer Emmanuel Gonzalès. In 1865, she began her professional training and took lessons in drawing from the society portraitist Charles Chaplin. Through her father’s connections as a founding president of the Société des gens de lettres, she met a variety of members of the Parisian cultural elite, and from a young age was exposed to the new ideas surrounding art and literature at the time.
The painting, which was completed in March 1870, shows a young woman sitting in front of a still life painting of flowers with her palette and brushes in her left hand while she reaches out towards the painting with the brush in her right hand. She is dressed in a long bluish-white silk gown that shimmers in the light in contrast with a pure white flower on the floor beside her. It is known that Eva Gonzales (1849 – 1883) was a student of Manet and that she went on to become an accomplished artist in her own right. This was, at that time, unusual as, although young women from prosperous families were encouraged to acquire skills in drawing and painting, it was rare for a woman to attempt to become a member of what would, at that time, have be seen as a male profession. As the art critic, Anne Higonnet, has put it; “Many artists could imagine painting modern women; fewer could imagine a modern woman painting”. This may explain what appears to be Manet’s uncertain attitude towards his subject. Notice that she is not actually looking at the canvas she seems to be working on and her elegant and expensive dress is hardly suitable for the messy business of oil painting. In addition the dress, which was chosen by Manet, is by the standards of the time, very revealing with its low-cut neckline and bare arms and would not have been considered suitable for a society portrait. It is as though Manet does not see before him a woman artist at all but, merely, an attractive young model posing as an artist.
Reproduction is a high-quality eco-ink printing on an Italian canvas. For smaller sizes, the image is wrapped on a hard back, and at the larger ones - stretched on a subframe. You get it arranged with a suitable frame.
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