Young Flautist

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Dimension: 161 x 97 cm.
Location: Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Manet created this canvas after he was impressed by the works by Diego Velázquez. In this picture, he presents a uniformed boy in a manner that imitates and inverts the formula of Vélazquez’s court portraits, against a barely inflected, flattened background of neutral tone. He thus frustrates one’s attempt to assess the figure’s true size and, by extension, importance.