Édouard ManetFrench, 1832–1883Polichinelle
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Polichinelle” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
This aged, clownish military officer is Polichinelle, most-commonly known to English-speaking audiences from the raucous Punch & Judy puppet shows in which the characters whack each other with sticks. He grew out of a long theatrical tradition called the Commedia dell’Arte, which attracted the attention of generations of artists for its lively—often bawdy—action, flamboyant costumes, and revealing truths.
Read on
When Édouard Manet saw that most of his work had been rejected by the jury of the 1874 Paris salon exhibition, he decided to promote himself by giving away thousands of impressions of this print. Unfortunately, the police banned its publication, thinking Polichinelle was a caricature of France’s newly-elected president, a general who had used brutal force to crush public protests three years earlier. How telling that they saw their pompous leader in the image and feared that he was so weak that it could undermine his authority.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2014.118.2
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain
In the life of Édouard Manet
The whole life1870s
Refuses to exhibit with the Impressionists
Although his own work influenced and anticipated the Impressionist style, Manet resisted involvement in Impressionist exhibitions: he did not wish to be seen as the representative of a group identity and held that modern artists should seek to exhibit at the Salon.
1874
“The Railway”: ridicule at the Salon of 1874
“The Railway”, painted in 1873, puzzled visitors and critics at the Salon of 1874: its subject seemed baffling, its composition incoherent and its execution sketchy; caricaturists ridiculed it, and only later was it recognised as a symbol of modernity. The model was Victorine Meurent, for the last time.
1874
Morisot marries Manet's brother
In 1874 Berthe Morisot married Manet's brother Eugène and became his sister-in-law; it has been speculated that there was a repressed love between Manet and Morisot, exemplified by the numerous portraits he made of her before her marriage.
1874–1876
The Salon jury rejects his paintings again
In 1874 the jury rejected “Masked Ball at the Opera”, and in 1876 both paintings Manet sent. Independent exhibitions in those years brought nothing but public censure and the mockery of critics.
1875
Lithographs for Poe's “The Raven” in Mallarmé's translation
In 1875 a book-length French edition of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven” appeared, with lithographs by Manet and a translation by his friend Stéphane Mallarmé.
1877
Manet's studio hosts a republican meeting
Of public figures Manet admired most the republican Léon Gambetta. In the heat of the seize mai coup in 1877 he opened up his atelier to a republican electoral meeting chaired by Gambetta's friend Eugène Spuller.
