Herr und Frau Édouard Manet

Degas painted this double portrait of his friend Édouard Manet in 1868 as a gift. Manet lounges on a sofa listening while his wife, Suzanne, a pianist, plays at the keyboard on the right. Then Manet took a knife to it. He cut a wide strip clean off the right side, slicing away Suzanne's face and most of the piano, and no one is quite sure why. He may have hated how Degas had drawn her, or the two painters, who were forever competing, may simply have been quarrelling. When Degas got the mutilated canvas back he was furious, and in return he sent back a small still life Manet had once given him. They did patch things up. What survives is this half-ruined picture, the raw cut edge left exactly as it is, Manet reclining beside an abrupt blank where his wife used to be. It is now in a museum in Kitakyushu, in Japan.