Letter from Édouard Manet to Mme Jules Guillemet, 1880
Translation: Bellevue, Thursday [July-August 1880] To Mme Jules Guillemet
Nonsense if you will, dear Madame, but such sweet nonsense [sketches of her shoes and skirts] which enables me to spend my time very pleasantly. I’m getting better and better, and a letter from you now and then would help my cure along - so don’t be too economical with them.
I haven’t seen Mlle L. [Lemonnier], her mother is very ill and she is moving. Still, I’m surprised to have had no news from her. I hope you won’t find my letters a bore, you’ll tell me, won’t you, and send me your news soon E. Manet
⚜Edouard Manet Masked Ball at the Opera (1873) According to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which currently houses the painting: “There is little doubt about the risqué nature of the evening, where masked young women, likely respectable ladies concealing their identities, scantily clad members of the Parisian demimonde, and well-dressed young men all mingle together.”
Manet did a preliminary sketch of the scene while he was at the party and included depictions of his friends—many of them also creative types—as well as himself in the work. He is likely the blonde, bearded figure on the right, who peers out to meet the eyes of the viewer. At his feet lies a fallen dance card that bears the painter’s signature. The artist completed the painting in his studio several months later, and many of his friends, including the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, stopped by to pose for the piece.
And although the painting was rejected by the jury of the 1874 Paris Salon for being too naturalist—and likely too scandalous—it found a home in the collection of the famed opera singer Jean-Baptiste Faure.
