The Old Musician

Painting by Édouard Manet

The Old Musician

Artist| Édouard Manet
Year| 1862
Medium| oil on canvas
Dimensions| 187.4 cm × 248.3 cm (73.8 in × 97.8 in)
Location| National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Old Musician is an 1862 oil painting on canvas by French painter Édouard Manet, produced during the period when the artist was influenced by Spanish art. The painting also betrays the influence of Gustave Courbet. This work is one of Manet's largest paintings and is now conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.[1]

## Description

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The painting is composed of seven characters in a landscape. The old musician in the center who is preparing to play the violin is Jean Lagrène, the leader of a local gypsy band.[2] To the left is a young girl standing with a baby in her arms, as well as two young boys. In the background, the man in the top hat is the rag picker and ironmonger Colardet.[2] At the right, the Oriental man (partly shown) with a turban and a long robe, represents Guéroult, a "wandering Jew".[2] Attitudes and clothes of the characters seem to be inspired by Diego Velázquez or Louis Le Nain.[2][3][4]

The painting contains a series of allusions: the man in the top hat is the same character as The Absinthe Drinker, painted by Manet some years earlier and who reappears in this painting without any particular reason. The young boy in straw hat, meanwhile, is explicitly inspired by Antoine Watteau's Pierrot.[5]

## See also

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* List of paintings by Édouard Manet
* 1862 in art

## References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Old Musician.

1. ^ "Collection - The Old Musician". nga.cov. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
2. ^ a b c d "The Old Musician, 1862 by Edouard Manet". manet.org. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
3. ^ "Édouard Manet, les premières œuvres" (in French). Van Gogh. Retrieved 25 March 2010.
4. ^ "Édouard Manet (artist), French, 1832 - 1883, The Old Musician, 1862". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 25 March 2010.
5. ^ Blake & Frascina 1993, pp. 88, 91, pl. 67, 81.

### Bibliography

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* Blake, Nigel & Frascina, Francis (1993). "Modern Practices of Art and Modernity". Modernity and Modernism : French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05514-5 - via the Internet Archive.
* Fried, Michael (1996). Manet's Modernism, or The Face of Painting in the 1860s. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-26217-0.

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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

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Germany

Other|

* RKD ID

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*[c.]: circa