Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada

1862 painting by Édouard Manet

Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada

Artist| Édouard Manet
Year| 1862
Medium| Oil on canvas
Dimensions| 165.1 × 127.6 (65 × 50 1/4 )
Location| Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada is an 1862 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Édouard Manet.[1] The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having been acquired in 1929.[1] Manet exhibited the painting at the 1863 Salon des Refusés alongside Jeune Homme en costume de majo and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe.[2] It is often cited as an example of Manet's work being influenced by Spanish art.[2]

## Subject matter[edit]

The painting shows Victorine Meurent dressed as an espada, a Spanish bullfighter.[3] Meurent is set in a bullring, with a bull about to attack a picador mounted on a horse in the background. The sword in Meurent's right hand suggests that she is prepared to kill the bull. Meurent is staring directly at the viewer rather than the bull. In the far back of the painting are a group of toreros who watch while keeping a safe distance.[3] Meurent carries a pink cape that is not the traditional muleta color a male bullfighter would carry; her shoes are likewise untraditional.[1]

## Manet's influences[edit]

Manet's Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada is the product of a combination of influences. The scene in the background is reminiscent of Spanish artist Francisco Goya's series of prints known as the Tauromaquia. Manet borrowed several elements from Goya's elements with little modification. The mounted picador on the horse is copied directly from plate 5 of the Tauromaquia, which is also referenced in the group of toreros and the bull. Manet departed from Goya in positioning Victorine Meurent and in updating the picador with contemporary attire.[4]

Meurent as the female bullfighter is more closely modeled after the Italian artist Marcantonio Raimondi's set of engravings with allegories of Virtue, specifically the figures of Temperance and Justice. The pose of Temperance resembles Meurent's stance, whereas the position of the sword in Justice is similar to that of Manet's painting.[5]

## Themes[edit]

The painting, like many works by Manet, addresses the theme of artifice. The scene shown in the painting is fictional, with Meurent having posed in a studio. The themes of "dressing-up" and "make-believe" are central to Manet's work.[6] In an effort to shift focus from subject matter to interest in the painting alone, Manet pushed for his work to be recognized as fiction. The title of the painting itself highlights this theme of artifice by explicitly revealing that Meurent is a model posing in a costume.[2]

Throughout Manet's early paintings, he made clear that he borrowed motifs, settings, and figures adopted from earlier works by other artists.[5] He especially drew from the works of old masters such as Titian, whose Venus of Urbino informed Manet's Olympia. The combination of artifice with borrowings from the works of earlier artists is distinctive of Manet's style.[citation needed]

## Modern scholarship[edit]

In the 1980s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art conducted research on the painting using X-radiography. The X-radiograph showed a female nude figure beneath the composition of Meurent. This female nude was upside down and shows great similarity to the one of the nude females in François Boucher's Diane sortant du bain.[7]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b c The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mademoiselle V. . . in the Costume of an Espada". The Met.
2. ^ a b c Loyette, Henri (1994). Origins of Impressionism. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 399.
3. ^ a b Lacambre, Geniève; Tinterow, Gary (2003). Manet/Velàzquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. New York, New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Yale University Press. p. 222.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
4. ^ Schulz, Andrew (June 2008). "Moors and the Bullfight: History and National Identity in Goya's Tauromaquia". The Art Bulletin. 90 (2): 213.
5. ^ a b Farwell, Beatrice (1969). "Manet's 'Espada' and Marcantonio". The University of Chicago Press Journals. 2: 200–204.
6. ^ Krell, Alan (1996). "Bathers, Bodies and Put-Ons". Manet and the Painters of Contemporary Life. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 23–46.
7. ^ Beeny, Emily A. (January 2018). "Manet's Boucher". Metropolitan Museum Journal. 53: 66–82.

* v
* t
* e

Édouard Manet

Paintings|

* List of paintings
* The Barque of Dante (1854–1858)
* Christ the Gardener (1856–1859)
* The Absinthe Drinker (1859)
* Spanish Cavaliers (1859)
* Portrait of Madame Brunet (1860)
* Portrait of Monsieur and Madame Manet (1860)
* The Spanish Singer (1860)
* Boy Carrying a Sword (1861)
* La Nymphe surprise (1861)
* The Street Singer (1862)
* Music in the Tuileries (1862)
* The Old Musician (1862)
* Portrait of Victorine Meurent (1862)
* Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada (1862)
* Little Lange (1862)
* The Luncheon on the Grass (1863)
* La Négresse (1863)
* Olympia (1863)
* Young Man Dressed as a Majo (1863)
* The Dead Man (1864))
* The Bullfight (1864–65)
* The Dead Christ with Angels (1864)
* The Kearsarge at Boulogne (1864)
* The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama (1864)
* The Races at Longchamp (1865)
* Jesus Insulted by the Soldiers (1865)
* Bullfight (1865–66)
* Bullfight – Death of the Bull (1865)
* The Matador Saluting (1866)
* The Fifer (1866)
* A Young Lady in 1866 (1866)
* The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867)
* Portrait of Emile Zola (1868)
* Boy Blowing Bubbles (1868)
* Madame Manet at the Piano (1867–68)
* The Balcony (1868)
* Luncheon in the Studio (1868)
* The Reading (1868)
* The Port of Boulogne by Moonlight (1868)
* Departure of the Folkestone Steamer (1869)
* The Brioche (1870)
* Repose (1870)
* The Funeral (1870)
* Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge (1870)
* Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872)
* Tarring a Boat (1873)
* The Railway (1873)
* The Croquet Game (1873)
* Masked Ball at the Opera House (1873)
* Argenteuil (1874)
* Berthe Morisot with a Fan (1874)
* Claude Monet Painting in his Studio (1874)
* Boating (1874)
* Portrait of Marguerite de Conflans (c. 1876)
* Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé (1876)
* Le Suicidé (1877–1881)
* Nana (1877)
* Plum Brandy (c. 1877)
* The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags (1878)
* Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts (c. 1878)
* Chez Tortoni (c. 1878–1880)
* Georges Clemenceau (Fort Worth) (1879)
* Georges Clemenceau (Paris) (1879)
* Chez le Père Lathuille (1879)
* Portrait of Marguerite Gauthier-Lathuille (1879)
* In the Conservatory (1879)
* Madame Manet in the Conservatory (1879)
* The Waitress (1879)
* Corner of a Café-Concert (1879)
* The Café-Concert (1879)
* Self-Portrait with Palette (1879)
* A Bundle of Asparagus (1880)
* A Sprig of Asparagus (1880)
* Portrait of Countess Albazzi (1880)
* Portrait of Monsieur Pertuiset the Lion-Hunter (1881)
* Dead Eagle Owl (1881)
* The Rabbit (1881)
* Rochefort's Escape (1881)
* Spring (1881)
* Autumn (1882)
* A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
* The House at Rueil (1882)
* Flowers in a Crystal Vase (1882)
* White Lilacs in a Glass Vase (1882)

Models|

* Méry Laurent
* Victorine Meurent
* Laure
* Suzanne Manet (wife)
* Berthe Morisot

Portrayals|

* A Studio at Les Batignolles (1870 painting)
* Bazille's Studio (1870 painting)
* The Impressionists (2006 series)

Related|

* Eugène Manet (brother)

Authority control databases |

* RKD ID

|

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[c.]: circa