Édouard Manet - Chez Tortoni, 1879-1880

Painted between 1879 and 1880, Édouard Manet‘s Chez Tortoni depicts an unidentified gentleman wearing a top hat sitting at a table in the Cafe Tortoni de Paris while drawing on a sketchpad. On the table besides him, there is a half-empty glass of beer. Although executed with broad and tactile brushstrokes, the work exhibits a remarkable level of clarity.

Manet executed the work in his 40s, in his full maturity. A cult place, Cafe Tortoni de Paris was back in its heyday frequented by the likes of Renoir, Degas, Baudelaire, Duranty, Maupassant and Proust, among others.

The canvas belongs to a series of Manet’s works depicting café society, forming a kind of social history of demimondaine Paris in the late 19th century.