Music Lesson

At the Paris Salon of 1870 two pictures put the same man in front of Manet. In Henri Fantin-Latour's group portrait of painters and writers in the Batignolles quarter, Manet sits at his easel painting Zacharie Astruc, a poet, critic and composer who had defended him during the Olympia uproar. In Manet's own entry that year, this large canvas, Astruc is the music teacher with the guitar, seated beside a young woman. Manet's friend and early biographer Théodore Duret identified him in that role.

The picture stayed with Manet until his death. At the sale of his studio in February 1884 the dealers Durand-Ruel bought it for 4,400 francs. It then belonged to Henri Rouart, an engineer and painter who collected the work of his friends, and when his collection was auctioned in December 1912 it fetched 120,000 francs, more than 27 times the earlier price.