The Bell Gallery collection includes five etchings by Edouard Manet. During the “etching revival” at the end of the nineteenth century Manet started experimenting with printmaking. He was most enthusiastic and productive as a printmaker between 1860 and 1863; during this time he produced over half his prints including the Guitar Player, which was included in the first publication by the printer Delâtre of the Société des Aquafortistes in 1862. The Bell Gallery impression is from the fifth state. Guitar Player demonstrates Manet’s confident etching style which created a spontaneous effect with strong contrast through a variety of etched strokes including fine crosshatching and parallel lines, deeply bitten lines, and aquatint.

The image was based on Manet’s painting Guitar Player (1860), which was the artist’s first success: it was accepted by the state run Salon and won an Honorable Mention. Manet was deeply interested in Spain and especially the work of Valezquez from whom he drew the most inspiration. Even though the work appealed to the public’s new taste for all that is Spanish, it is not an authentic representation. Rather, as in many other paintings and etchings, Manet most likely posed a model in a costume put together from things in his studio for this painting. The image is a pastiche of a Spanish theme from Manet’s imagination with a touch of Franz Hals Dutch genre painting.

Most of Manet’s prints were of his paintings, possibly executed to disseminate the image to a larger audience. However, Manet also made a few original prints. For example he depicted his close friend, poet, and art critic, Baudelaire. Portrait of Baudelaire, In Profile II, 1865 and Charles Baudelaire, Full Face III, 1868 were both included in the 1869 biography of Baudelaire. Lemerre, who owned the plates after 1869, most likely pulled the Bell Gallery prints.

Manet’s printmaking career was rather short. The etching, Berthe Morisot from 1872, was one of Manet’s last. Morisot was also a painter and close friend and in 1874 she married Manet’s brother Eugene. Manet depicted Morisot in several canvasses and prints. The Berthe Morisot print in the Bell Gallery collection is one of the three prints based on a portrait of Morisot from 1872, often called Berthe Morisot with a Bunch of Violets. It is the second state, probably from the Dumont edition as it is on blue green laid paper. Manet used distinctive short parallel strokes to define the dark figure, rather than the varied etched marks in his earlier works. The result is a focus on the dark and intense Morisot with wispy hair and hat feathers.

Line at the Butcher’s; Siege of Paris was executed during the siege of Paris by Prussian troops in winter 1870. While under siege, Manet wrote often to his wife Suzanne of the hardships that all of Paris had to endure. The Line at the Butcher’s could represent any number of queues for bread or meat; the only sign of the military crisis is a single bayonet rising above the sea of umbrellas in the center of the print.

Like the Berthe Morisot print, Line at the Butcher’s . . . makes use of short parallel lines to define the figures and umbrellas. However, the lines are spaced further apart and vary in direction. The print also adroitly balances blank spaces with the waiting figures, which indicates that Manet was looking at Japanese prints for inspiration. This print has only one state, and is most likely unfinished. It is most likely from the 1905 edition by Alfred Strolin, due to the watermark of the fleur-de-lys on the paper and printed in dark brown ink.