Manet | A Bar at the Folies-Bergeres

About A Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet

Manet painted this in 1882, the last major work he completed. He was already seriously ill and could barely stand for long, so he had a section of the bar rebuilt in his studio and worked from a real Folies-Bergère barmaid named Suzon. He died the following year, aged 51.

She stands behind a marble counter loaded with bottles, a bowl of oranges and roses in a glass, facing us directly. Behind her a mirror throws back the whole crowded music hall — chandeliers, a balcony packed with faces, and in the top left corner, cropped by the frame, a pair of green-slippered legs belonging to a trapeze artist mid-performance.

And the mirror is wrong. Her reflection is shifted far to the right, where it could not possibly be. A top-hatted man appears in that reflection, apparently speaking to her — but if he were standing where the reflection implies, he would be between us and her, blocking the view. Manet knew exactly what he was doing. A century and a half of writing has gone into why, and there is still no settled answer.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere at a glance

• Artist: Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
• Painted: 1882, Paris
• Movement: Impressionism / Realism
• Original: The Courtauld Gallery, London
• Medium: Oil on canvas, 96 × 130 cm

Common questions about A Bar at the Folies-Bergere

Own a hand-painted Bar at the Folies-Bergere

This is not a print. Every painting we sell is reproduced in oils on canvas, by hand, by professional artists — no giclée, no computer-generated technique.

The painting works by making two things out of very different stuff. Suzon herself is solid and frontal, painted with firm edges and almost no expression, entirely still. Everything behind her in the mirror — the crowd, the balcony, the chandeliers — is dissolved into loose smears that never resolve into faces. She is present; the world behind her is not quite. That difference between hard, plain handling and deliberately unfinished handling is the whole subject, and it depends on the two being visibly made in different ways. Reproduction renders every part of a canvas with the same mechanical evenness, so the gap narrows and she stops standing out from the blur. Painted by hand in oils, the crowd goes back to being smears and Suzon goes back to being unnervingly solid in front of them.

• A range of sizes — choose yours above. The original is wide, and the composition needs that width for the mirror to do its work.
• Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas if you would rather frame it yourself.
• 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions.
• Free delivery Australia-wide. Australian owned and operated, with a local contact you can actually reach.

Framing Options: You have 3 choices

Option 1. Choose an outer frame - see images below.

You only need to choose one and the painting will be sent to you framed and ready to hang.

* Below is an example of a customer who chose the Gold Ornate frame

Option 2: Choose a Gallery Wrap Stretched Painting.

If you want the frameless modern gallery wrap look then you only need to choose Stretched Gallery Wrap from the finish option dropdown.

You receive your stretched gallery wrap painting ready to hang - with a hanging wire attached behind.

The back of the Stretched Gallery Wrap looks like the image below - it has a hanging wire!

Option 3: Choose Canvas Only if you want to frame the painting yourself.

Your painting will be sent to you in an art tube - you can then frame it yourself or take it to your local framer.