Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet was born into a wealthy and well-connected Parisian family; his father was a judge who expected him to pursue a career in law.

After failing the navy entrance examination, Manet sailed on a training vessel to Brazil; on his return he failed the exam again and his family accepted his artistic vocation.

Manet trained for six years under the academic painter Thomas Couture while copying old masters in the Louvre and travelling to study art in Europe.

Rejected by the official Salon, Manet's painting of a nude woman picnicking with clothed men caused a public scandal at the Salon des Refusés.

Manet married the Dutch pianist Suzanne Leenhoff, who had been his family's piano teacher, in the Netherlands.

Manet's Olympia, a frank depiction of a reclining courtesan, provoked one of the great scandals of nineteenth-century art when shown at the Salon.

Manet presided over gatherings of writers and younger painters, including Monet, Renoir, and Degas, who would form the Impressionist movement, though he declined to exhibit in their group shows.

Late in life Manet received official recognition when he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

Manet's last major painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, was shown at the Salon while his health was failing.

Suffering from complications of syphilis and gangrene that led to the amputation of his left foot, Manet died in Paris at the age of 51.