Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat

Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat

Edgar Degas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing and another by Degas (MMA 19.51.6), both purchased at the sale of the contents of Degas's studio in 1918, are preparatory studies for an etched portrait of Manet made about 1866–68, a few years after the two painters first met in the Louvre. Degas portrayed Manet several times: He made a drawing of Manet watching the races at Longchamps (MMA 19.51.8) and a painting that showed him listening to Mme Manet playing the piano. Upon receiving the painting, Manet was dissatisfied with his wife's likeness and cut off her side of the canvas, an act which enraged Degas and soured the artists' friendship.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His HatÉdouard Manet, Seated, Holding His HatÉdouard Manet, Seated, Holding His HatÉdouard Manet, Seated, Holding His HatÉdouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat

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.