Copy after Delacroix's "Bark of Dante"

This 1859 Metropolitan Museum canvas shows the young Manet copying Delacroix's 'Bark of Dante' — a practice common among students at the École des Beaux-Arts and a sign of intense engagement with the Romantic master. Manet copied widely throughout his early career, working from Titian, Velázquez, and Delacroix in the Louvre, not as mere academic exercise but as a method of absorbing and transforming his sources. His copy of the Delacroix shows the kind of free, spirited transcription rather than exact replication that characterizes his relationship to the Old Masters. This work reveals the foundation on which Manet's revolutionary modernism was built — a deep, practical knowledge of European tradition.

Manet reproduces Delacroix's turbulent composition in a relatively faithful but freshened manner, his brushwork slightly looser and more direct than the original's academic finish. The dramatic contrasts of dark boat and writhing figures against storm-lit water demonstrate his early mastery of tonal extremes. The copy is less a reproduction than an interpretation.