The Plum

The Plum, known in French as La Prune, is an oil on canvas by Édouard Manet, thought to date from around 1877. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It shows a young woman seated alone at a marble table in a café, her cheek resting on her right hand and her gaze drifting into the distance. Her left hand lies on the table, holding an unlit cigarette. In front of her is a glass with a plum soaked in brandy, a drink common in Parisian cafés of the period and the origin of the title. The glass was originally painted as a glass of beer.

The picture conveys above all loneliness. The scene is seen from a short distance, perhaps from the table of another customer, and the figure looks absorbed rather than defeated. Her pink dress, embroidered cuffs, white jabot and black hat stand out against the red upholstered banquette and the decorative grille framing her head. The brushwork is deliberately simple: the plum, its glass and the fingers of her left hand are suggested with just a few touches of colour.

The identity of the sitter has been discussed. She is usually identified as the actress Ellen Andrée, who also appears in Edgar Degas's L'Absinthe of 1876, and she may be a shop worker or a woman waiting for a client, though the reading remains open. Some scholars think Manet had Degas's work in mind. Where Degas's scene is bleak, with despair dulled by absinthe, Manet's feels more hopeful, as if the woman's solitude might yet be broken.

As for its history, the painting passed to the collector Charles Deudon around 1881, then into the collection of the banker Arthur Sachs, and after several sales reached Paul Mellon in 1961, who gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1971. Its appeal lies in combining an everyday café scene with a quiet, ambiguous mood typical of modern Parisian life.

Painter

Édouard Manet

Date

1878

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

74 × 50 cm

Museum

Galería Nacional de Arte, Washington, D.C.

Genre

genre art

Depicts

sitting, drink, woman, coffee

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