The Muse of Edouard Manet by M. Clifford

Her self-portrait was shown at the Paris Salon the following year, when Manet’s work was not. Trying her luck on the other side of the canvas Victorine attended evening classes at the Académie Julian in 1875 under the instruction of the painter Etienne Leroy. Unlike many other muses however, especially at the time, Victorine is not believed to have been Manet’s lover, but was romantically linked to Stevens.Īs an artist Victorine had a more academic style of painting to which Manet was long-opposed to. Victorine also modelled for painters Edgar Degas and Alfred Stevens.

Some have said that they met on the street near the Palais de Justice. It might have been at Thomas Couture’s studio, where she worked as a model, or through her father. She started modelling for Manet in 1862 at the age of 16, but how they met is unclear. Working both as the Muse and the artist like other women in history such as Dora Maar and Camille Claudel.īorn in Paris in 1844, Victorine came from a working class family of artisans. Unconventionally pretty, Victorine was known for her confident gaze, petite stature and her red hair – due to this she acquired the nickname La Crevette, The Shrimp.Īlthough she is best known as the favourite model of Édouard Manet alongside other artists, she was also an artist in her own right. Lazare, even the boy in The Fifer are all Victorine Meurent. The nudes in the French painter’s Dejeuner sur L’Herbe and Olympia, the demure Young Lady in 1866, The Street Singer, The Gare St. Victorine Meurent – the Muse at the heart of many of Édouard Manet’s paintings is a red-haired woman that, may not be identical from picture to picture, turns out to be the same model.

The Muse of Edouard Manet by M. Clifford