Detail of the Dead Toreador by Manet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: The Dead Toreador

Artist: Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)

Date: probably 1864

Geography: Country of Origin France

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 29 7/8 × 60 3/8 in. (75.9 × 153.3 cm)
Framed: 41 1/8 × 71 5/8 × 4 in. (104.4 × 181.9 × 10.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Widener Collection (1942.9.40)

Accession Number: MD.049


This work originally formed the lower half of a larger composition titled Episode from a Bullfight, which Manet exhibited at the Salon of 1864. Its subject reflects the current enthusiasm for Spanish culture, though it is not a scene Manet had witnessed firsthand; his first visit to Spain would occur the following year. Critics faulted the spatial relationship and relative scale between the bull and figures in the background and the fallen toreador in the foreground. Heeding this criticism, Manet cut the canvas in two and displayed this portion with a new title at his solo exhibition in 1867.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844788