La Négresse (Manet)
La Négresse is an 1862 oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet, now in the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli in Turin.
| La Négresse | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Édouard Manet |
| Year | 1862 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 61 cm × 50 cm (24 in × 20 in) |
| Location | Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin |
The name of the model for the work is unknown; she may be Laure, the black woman holding a bunch of flowers in the same artist's Olympia. The work is still linked with the "black beauties of Baudelaire" in reference to his mistress Jeanne Duval, although Duval was mixed-race rather than black. Baudelaire and Manet became close friends, during which time he produced a portrait of Duval in 1862, entitled Baudelaire's Mistress. The poet was often in the painter's studio.
La Négresse is mentioned in Manet's posthumous inventory in 1883 under number 46 and was owned by Éva Gonzalès-Guérard, then Auguste Pellerin, then Alexandre Louis Philippe Berthier, prince of Wagram. In 1913 it belonged to Baron Herzog in Budapest, from whom it was looted by Nazi troops. The work passed through Berlin and Honolulu between 1933 and 1959, before entering its present home. It appeared in volume 1 of the 1975 Rouart-Wilderstein catalogue under the reference number RW 68.