
by Édouard Manet, 1869
Édouard Manet painted The Balcony between 1868 and 1869, inspired by Goya's Majas on the Balcony. Four figures occupy a green-shuttered balcony, though their psychological disconnection makes the scene feel strange. Nobody looks at anyone else. The seated woman in white is Berthe Morisot, making her first appearance in Manet's work.
Morisot would become one of the founding Impressionists and eventually marry Manet's brother Eugène. In 1874, painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet stands at center. Violinist Fanny Claus appears at right. A fourth figure, possibly Manet's son Léon, lurks in the shadowed interior.
The painting measures 170 by 125 centimeters and hangs at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. It was exhibited at the 1869 Salon, kept by Manet until his death, then purchased by painter Gustave Caillebotte. Caillebotte's bequest brought it to national collections in 1894.
Other masterpieces from the Impressionism movement

Claude Monet, 1926
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

Claude Monet, 1875
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

James McNeill Whistler, 1871
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Claude Monet, 1899
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Claude Monet, 1872
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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