The Balcony
About the painting
The Balcony (French: Le balcon) is an 1868–69 oil painting by the French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts four figures on a balcony, one of whom is sitting: the painter Berthe Morisot, who married Manet's brother Eugène in 1874. In the centre is the painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is Fanny Claus, a violinist. The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Léon Leenhoff, Manet's son.
It was exhibited at the 1869 Paris Salon, and then kept by Manet until his death in 1883. It was sold to the painter Gustave Caillebotte in 1884, who left it to the French state in 1894. It is currently held at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Meanwhile, in the life of Édouard Manet
The whole life1867
His own pavilion near the Pont de l'Alma
In 1867, during the World's Fair in Paris, Manet set up his own pavilion near the Pont de l'Alma and showed fifty of his best works of the past ten years. Possibly this step led to his works being accepted at the next two Salons.
1867
Zola defends Manet in print
In 1867 Émile Zola, who supported Manet publicly in the press, wrote that the public was not accustomed to such simple and direct translations of reality and that this luminous and serious painting interprets nature with a gentle brutality.
1867
First contacts with the future Impressionists
When Manet was excluded from the International Exhibition of 1867 he set up his own; it was enormously expensive, his mother worried he would waste his inheritance, and it earned poor reviews from the major critics, but it provided his first contacts with several future Impressionist painters, including Degas.
1868
Friendship with Berthe Morisot
In 1868 Manet became a friend and colleague of Berthe Morisot; she is credited with convincing him to attempt plein air painting, to which Camille Corot had introduced her. Through Morisot, Manet became friends with Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne and Pissarro.
1870
The siege of Paris: Manet in the army
During the siege of Paris Manet, a convinced republican, sent his family to Oloron-Sainte-Marie in the south of France, while he himself, with many fellow artists, joined the army and took part in the defence of the capital; he was lucky to survive.
