Realism in France

Édouard Manet

The Old Musician

1862

Oil on canvas, 187.4 × 248.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington

Five ragged figures gather around a bearded street violinist on waste ground.

• First shown at the Galerie Martinet in Paris in 1863.
• His models came from a poor neighborhood at the city's edge, just as Paris was being rebuilt around new boulevards.
• Street people painted at a scale the National Gallery says was normally kept for the wealthy and powerful.

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