In the Conservatory

Painted in 1878-1879 and now at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, In the Conservatory depicts Manet's friends Jules Guillemet and his American wife in the botanical conservatory that Manet rented as a studio setting during the winter of 1878-1879. The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1879 and received considerable positive attention — unusually for Manet. The setting of the conservatory — exotic plants, filtered light, the social world of fashionable Paris — gives the canvas a specific texture of contemporary Parisian bourgeois life that marks Manet as the supreme painter of modernity.

The conservatory setting provides Manet with a range of greens and warm filtered light that he handles with great subtlety. The woman's white dress is modelled with cool blues and greys suggesting dappled shadow. The man leans on the bench, his darker clothing a tonal anchor. The elaborate setting of plants and cast-iron bench is rendered with confidence, each botanical form quickly described.