Édouard ManetFrankrig, 1832–1883The Dead Toreador
Kan det ses?
Ja, udstillet nu
Hvor er »The Dead Toreador« i dag? National Gallery of Art, Sal 90 · Vestbygningen, hovedetagen, Washington, D.C. Ja, udstillet nu. Kontrolleret 29. september 2026.
Åbent nu· til kl. 17.00
Udstillet for publikum.
- Kontrolleret
- Uændret siden
- Kilde
- Museet
Om maleriet
The Dead Man (L'Homme mort; originally entitled The Dead Toreador or Le Torero mort) is an 1860s oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet, produced during a period in which Manet was strongly influenced by Spanish themes and painters such as Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya and bullfighting.
On 14 September 1865, Manet wrote to Baudelaire: One of the most beautiful, most curious and most terrible spectacles one can see is a bull hunt. On my return, I hope to put on canvas the brilliant, flickering and at the same time dramatic appearance of the corrida I attended. Among his other his paintings on the theme are The Matador Saluting and The Bullfight.
The work was originally part of a larger composition entitled Episode from a Bullfight, directly influenced by Goya's La Tauromaquia and Alfred Dehodencq's Bullfights.
Læs videre
The canvas was accepted for the Salon of 1864, where many critics identified A Dead Soldier as one of the main inspirations for the figure that became The Dead Man. This was possibly by a Neapolitan artist but attributed to Diego Velázquez and was then in the Hermann Alexander de Pourtalès' collection, later being acquired by the National Gallery, London. In his complete account of the 1864 Paris Salon, Théophile Thoré-Burger even asserted that "the figure of the dead toreador is boldly copied after a masterpiece from the Pourtalès gallery, painted by Vélasquez". He also insinuated that Manet had directly copied that work, a comment strongly refuted by Baudelaire.
A very large photograph of Dead Soldier had been published by Goupil in 1863 and some even theorised that Manet had seen the original before painting Episode in a Bullfight. Critics also identified as influences Jean-Léon Gérôme's Dead Caesar or even an illustration from the novel Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Jean Gigoux. The main influence, however, was probably Vélasquez, an influence also to be seen in Manet's The Execution of Emperor Maximilian. The critics also mocked Episode's lack of relief, the poor proportions of its figures and the unreal space. Stung by this criticism, Manet cut the canvas up. He kept two parts of the original work — The Dead Man is one of them, though it was subject to a major reworking by Manet after he cut it from the original work, turning it into a powerful independent work. To give it a more universal character he also renamed it to its present name ready for its display at the Salon of 1867. The other part Manet saved is now titled The Bullfight — Manet's signature was added to it after his death.
Oplysninger
- Inventarnummer
- 1942.9.40
Hvad det viser
I kataloget
Kilder
- National Gallery of Art
- Billede: National Gallery of Art — Museum open access
Imens i livet hos Édouard Manet
Hele livet1862
“Music in the Tuileries”: the fury of the public
In 1862 Manet exhibited “Music in the Tuileries” (probably painted in 1860), where the strollers include the poet Baudelaire, the musician Offenbach and the artist himself. It mostly provoked fury: the thick brushstrokes looked crude and unfinished, several visitors threatened to destroy the canvas; Delacroix defended it, and the controversy made Manet a well-known name in Paris.
c. 1862
Victorine Meurent: model and lover
Victorine-Louise Meurent, a young provincial eager to escape poverty, posed for “The Street Singer”; soon the painter and his model were bound not only by creative but by intimate ties. Rumours spread across Paris, but Suzanne either learned nothing or did not let on.
1863
“The Luncheon on the Grass” at the Salon des Refusés
The Salon of 1863 rejected “The Luncheon on the Grass” (originally “Le Bain”), and Manet exhibited it at the Salon des Refusés, a parallel exhibition initiated by Napoleon III after a public outcry, the jury having accepted only 2,217 of more than 5,000 submissions. The juxtaposition of dressed men and a nude woman and the sketch-like handling caused a scandal; one critic compared the brushwork to a “floor mop”.
1863
Marries Suzanne Leenhoff
In 1863, a year after his father's death, Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff at a Protestant church: a Dutch-born piano teacher two years his senior with whom he had been romantically involved for about ten years. Auguste Manet had employed her to teach his sons the piano, and she may also have been Auguste's mistress.
1863
Married: Suzanne Manet
1865
“Olympia” at the Salon: a scandal
In 1865 the Salon accepted “Olympia”, and the frank depiction of a self-assured prostitute created a scandal; according to Antonin Proust, only the precautions taken by the administration prevented the painting from being punctured and torn. The popular press caricatured it, while the avant-garde, including Courbet, Cézanne and Monet, championed it.
![The Watering Place (Horses Bathing) [L'abreuvoir (chevaux au bain)], Pablo Picasso, 1906](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/bbac782b-88ea-4477-97a5-4369aa47b98a/full/!2400,2400/0/default.jpg)
