The Plum

Painted c.1877-1878 and now at the National Gallery of Art, The Plum depicts a young woman in a café with a small glass of plum brandy before her — dreamily absent, her hand supporting her chin, a half-lit cigarette in the other hand. The work belongs to the series of café and bar subjects that Manet produced in the late 1870s, capturing the psychological texture of modern Parisian social life in its quiet, melancholy moments rather than its celebratory ones. The woman's absorption in her own thoughts — seemingly unaware of being observed — creates the characteristic Manet quality of presence without reciprocation. The NGA acquired it as a key example of his café subjects.

The woman is placed in a shallow café space, the marble tabletop in the foreground providing a pale horizontal surface for the glass. Her pink dress is rendered with warm rose tones against the cooler background. The small plum brandy glass is a tour de force of Manet's still-life technique — described with minimal strokes that capture its transparency and the plum colour of its contents. Her distracted expression is handled with psychological economy.