oil on canvas, 73 x 106 cm
1873
Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
by Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
A game of croquet is in progress in the garden of Belgian artist Alfred Stevens. The ladies are about to start their turn while the gentlemen casually observe. Edouard Manet has traded his mallet for a paintbrush. His colleague Paul Roudier has taken his place as the fourth player but has yet to participate actively and remains uninvolved in the background. The lady about to drive the ball is Victorine Meurent, whom Manet had already painted nude as Olympia and in Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). In The Croquet Party she appears middle class and sporty. In 1873, when the picture was painted, croquet was a popular leisure activity in which both sexes could participate informally. Manet no longer found inspiration in painting nude figures and historical compositions. Along with Claude Monet he had already begun to experiment with plein air painting. The protagonists of the contemporary art scene, the artists and their models, left the cities and moved to the countryside. The garden became their studio.
oil on canvas, 73 x 106 cm