Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
France, 1867
Signed: Manet
Oil on canvas
100.5 x 81.4 cm
Inv. no. 2361

In this painting, Édouard Manet offers an individual interpretation of the subject of this painting: vanitas, the ephemeral nature of life symbolised by the soap bubbles. Aspects such as the dark background, the simple forms and the restrained composition recall another work on the same subject by the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin. Yet the allegorical content does not here dominate the artistic autonomy of the visual discourse. Manet creates his own form of expression and uses the motif to introduce his sensorial perception and subjectivity. The theory that this painting may be the Artist’s reflection on the immortality of art cannot be discarded.

The model for this painting was Léon-Édouard KoS¿lla – Manet?s stepson – who appeared in the painter?s work for several years. The work?s free and direct style, with the clearly defined figure, also recalls the genius of such great masters as Murillo and Frans Hals.