Die Eisenbahn

In 1873 the Gare Saint-Lazare was the largest and busiest railway station in Paris, and Manet set up nearby to paint it. The odd thing is that you can't really see it. A young woman sits at an iron fence with a book and a small dog, looking straight out at us, while a little girl in a white dress with a blue bow turns her back and grips the railings, watching for the train. Of the train there is only a great white cloud of steam filling the space where the tracks should be. The woman is Victorine Meurent, the model who had stared out just as boldly from Manet's Olympia years before. This was the last time he painted her. When it went to the Salon of 1874, visitors found it baffling and caricaturists mocked it, unsure whether they were looking at a finished picture or a sketch.