Porträt von Georges Clemenceau

Manet painted this around 1879, when Georges Clemenceau was a hard-charging young radical in the parliament of the new French Republic, decades before he became the fierce old prime minister who led France through the First World War. Manet catches him mid-speech, arms folded, as if pausing at the tribune. The two men moved in the same Paris circles, but Clemenceau had little patience for sitting still and gave the painter almost no time. Manet worked fast and left the background bare, throwing all the attention onto the alert, impatient face. He was seriously ill by now, with only a few years to live. Clemenceau himself never much cared for the portrait.