At the Milliner's (La Modiste)

By 1881 hat shops were everywhere in Paris, and the painters of Manet's circle were paying attention. Edgar Degas was working on his own series of milliners in these same years. Manet, already seriously ill, took up the subject in this canvas and left it unfinished. The title puts the woman in a shop, though her low-cut gown, the loose black shawl and the flowered wallpaper feel more like a room at home, so she may be trying on hats sent over for her approval. Who she was has never been established. You can see where Manet stopped in the broad, slashing strokes along the hem of the shawl. Look, too, at her ear. The face is pale with rice powder, yet the ear is still pink, as if the powder had missed it. The picture was still in his studio when he died in 1883, and it was sold with the rest of the studio in February 1884.