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#239: By Aimee Ng, Curator Transcript

Sometimes referred to as the father of Impressionism, Manet inspired a number of artists associated with Impressionism but never exhibited his own art with the group; instead, he continued to strive for acceptance into the mainstream French academy and its public Salons. This was despite his determination to forge a new path for painting: bold colors, visible brushstrokes, modern subjects and points of view.

In 1864, when Manet painted this scene of a Spanish bullfight, he had not yet traveled to Spain. He would make his first and only trip to Madrid the following year. He and many of his contemporaries were enchanted by Spanish art—by artists like Velázquez, Goya, and Murillo—and Spanish subjects like the one he treats here. Manet’s figures are startlingly truncated in this unusual horizontal, rectangular format: the feet are missing from the two figures flanking the bull, which itself is only hinted at through the inclusion of the top of its head and horns, the ridge of its back, and wavy tail. Originally, this painting served as the upper portion of a larger composition entitled An Incident in a Bullfight, exhibited at the 1864 Salon. Harshly criticized for his handling of perspective and what one critic referred to as a bull that looked like a “horned rat,” Manet cut the canvas and created two smaller paintings from it, reworking both. The lower section is the painting known as The Dead Toreador now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which, X-rays show, included at the top the legs and belly of this bull, painted out by Manet in his reworking.

The Bullfight

 (French, 1832–1883)
Date1864
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions18 7/8 x 42 7/8 in. (47.9 x 108.9 cm)
Credit LineHenry Clay Frick Bequest
Accession number1914.1.86
Commentary

In 1864 Manet exhibited at the Salon a painting entitled An Incident in the Bullring. The work was savagely caricatured and criticized, one writer describing its subject as “a toreador of wood killed by a horned rat.” After the picture was returned from the Salon, Manet cut out two separate compositions from the canvas, possibly because he accepted the criticism as justified. The lower, larger section, now known as The Dead Toreador, is in the National Gallery, Washington. Both sections of the original canvas were subsequently reworked by the artist, the head of the bull being added to the Frick segment after the painting had been divided.

Unlike some of his American contemporaries, Mr. Frick showed little interest in the Impressionists. His acquisitions in this area were limited to this work by Manet, the paintings by Renoir and Degas, and two landscapes by Monet, one of which he sold back. The other — Banks of the Seine, Lavacourt — as always remained in his Pittsburgh residence.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Collection History

Baron Vitta, Paris. J.H. Dunn, London. Knoedler. Frick, 1914.

Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: French, Italian and Spanish. Volume II. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.

Not On View
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Jacques-Édouard Gatteaux
dated 1832
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dated 1825
Oil painting of landscape with boats on a river
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Gerard David
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oil painting of four ballet dancers in a studio with their arms outstretched and right legs lif…
Edgar Degas
1878–79
Oil painting of landscape with river and trees
Jules Dupré
19th century
Oil painting of a bearded man wearing black with lace collar and cuffs
Anthony van Dyck
ca. 1620
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