Angelina

Angelina, painted in 1865, depicts a young woman at a window — a subject Manet returned to throughout his career as a way of framing the female figure within domestic space while maintaining the psychological distance that characterized his approach to his models. The work was painted shortly after the Salon scandals of Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, and Angelina's more conventional presentation reflects the range of approaches Manet pursued simultaneously — the provocative and the intimate, the public and the private. The Musée d'Orsay holds this canvas within its comprehensive collection of Manet's work, where it can be understood as part of the sustained exploration of the female figure that runs through his entire career.

Manet applied paint in broad, confident strokes with little academic blending, the woman's figure rendered with the flat tonal simplicity he derived from his study of Velázquez. His palette is subdued — greys, blacks, and warm flesh tones — with the window providing the light source that models the face while flattening the surrounding space in the manner of the Japanese prints he admired.