Édouard ManetFrench, 1832–1883Young Lady in 1866
May one see it?
Yes, receiving visitors
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Room810New York, United States
On public display.
- Checked
- 5 hours ago
- In this state since
- Sep 26, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
A Young Lady in 1866 or Lady with a Parrot is an 1866 painting by Édouard Manet, showing his favourite model, Victorine Meurent, wearing a long pink peignoir, holding a small bouquet of violets, and accompanied by an African grey parrot. It is an oil painting on canvas measuring 185.1 x 128.6 cm, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It and Boy Carrying a Sword (also in the Met) were the first of Manet's works to enter a gallery collection.
Read on
It was first exhibited in the May 1867 exhibition of his works on the Avenue de l'Alma (now the Avenue George-V) in Paris as catalogue number 15, with the title Jeune dame en 1866. At the 1868 Paris Salon, the work's realism and inclusion of a parrot was reminiscent of Gustave Courbet's 1866 Woman with a Parrot (Metropolitan Museum of Art), a nude that had caused a scandal at that year's Salon. Manet's work was similarly criticised, and the public came to nickname it Lady with a Parrot, although it had been exhibited as Lady in Pink, then as A Young Lady or Young Lady in 1866.
Particulars
- Accession number
- 89.21.3
What it shows
Sources
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art: the museum's own open data · fetched 4 days ago
- Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Open Access (CC0)
Meanwhile, in the life of Édouard Manet
The whole life1865
“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.
1865
Flight to Spain: El Greco, Velázquez, Goya
The persecution after “Olympia” forced Manet to flee, almost literally, to Spain, where he spent his time to good purpose, getting to know the works of El Greco, Velázquez and Goya and finding in them a justification of his own aesthetic taste.
after 1865
Café Guerbois and the Batignolles group
After returning from Spain Manet became a regular at the Café Guerbois in the Batignolles quarter, where Fantin-Latour, Whistler, Duranty, Degas, Renoir, Monet and Pissarro gathered, with Émile Zola as Manet's ardent defender. After harsh reproaches from Duranty, Manet challenged him to a duel and wounded him, but they made up and remained good friends until Manet's death.
1867
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
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.
