Portrait of Madame Edouard Manet on a blue sofa

Painted in 1874 and now at the Musée d'Orsay, this portrait of Suzanne Leenhoff — who had married Manet in 1863 — reclining on a blue sofa has a quietly domestic intimacy unusual in his relatively formal portrait series. Suzanne, a Dutch pianist who had been connected to the Manet household since Édouard's youth, appears in several of his paintings, though always with less intensity than his other women subjects. The blue sofa provides a strong chromatic anchor and frames her figure. The Orsay holds the work as part of its comprehensive Manet collection, which includes the major controversial canvases alongside more intimate personal works like this.

The intense blue of the sofa upholstery is the dominant chromatic element, its rich blue-violet tones rendered with broad, assured strokes. Suzanne's pale face and light clothing are set against this blue mass, the contrast creating the composition's main tonal dynamic. The paint is applied with the characteristic Manet directness — confident, economical, each area given exactly the description required.