Boy in Flowers (Jacques Hoschedé)

In the summer of 1876 Manet spent about two weeks at the country house of Ernest Hoschede, a Paris businessman and art collector, in the village of Montgeron southeast of the city. He painted several canvases to decorate the walls, and this is one of them: Jacques, the eldest of the Hoschede children, standing among the flowers of the garden. You can watch Manet's painting change here. Through the 1860s he had worked with heavy blacks and flat blocks of color. Now, close to the Impressionists and to Monet above all, his brush loosens and his palette brightens into the garden light. He carried the picture back to Paris unfinished, and it stayed in his studio until his death in 1883. The tall decorated vase beside the boy turns up again in other works from his hand.