Realism in France

Édouard Manet

The Dead Toreador

probably 1864

Oil on canvas, 75.9 × 153.3 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington

A bullfighter lies dead on the ground, painted alone against a plain dark background.

• It began as part of a larger picture shown at the Salon of 1864.
• After critics and cartoonists mocked that canvas, Manet cut it up; the other piece, The Bullfight, is in the Frick Collection.
• A contemporary death treated like a fact, not a drama.

Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington · Public domain (NGA Open Access)