Mlle. Victorine in the Costume of an "Espada"

Edouard Manet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although Édouard Manet is better remembered for his paintings, he was also a prolific etcher and an early collaborator with Alfred Cadart, who he probably met through their mutual friend, the writer Charles Baudelaire. This print was included in an early project that the artist completed with Cadart, the 1862 album Eaux-fortes par Édouard Manet. The series included a total of nine etchings, six of which reprised the artist's paintings. Mlle. Victorine in the Costume of an "Espada" shows one of the artist's favorite models in Spanish costume, and relates to a painting of the same year (29.100.53). Manet translated the painting's earthy tones into a complex system of textures, achieved through fields of aquatint and densely etched lines.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art