George Moore (1852–1933)

Pastel on canvas, 21 3/4 x 13 7/8 in. (55.2 x 35.2 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Description:
This pastel, executed in one sitting, depicts the Irish critic and novelist George Moore. He used it as the frontispiece for his book Modern Painting (1893), noting that as "a fresh-complexioned, fair-haired young man, the type most suitable to Manet's palette, [the artist] at once asked [him] to sit." Critics ridiculed this work when it was exhibited in 1880, calling it "Le Noyé repêché" (the drowned man fished out of the water). The picture is Manet’s only completed portrait of Moore; one of his unfinished canvases, George Moore at the Café (55.193), is in the Museum's collection.

This pastel, executed in one sitting, depicts the celebrated Irish critic and novelist George Moore, who was in Paris from 1873 until the end of 1879. During that time Manet made at least three more portraits of him.