Portrait of Emile Zola

A few years before this, the young writer Emile Zola had publicly defended Manet at a time when Manet was being mocked, especially over his nude Olympia, which had scandalised the Salon of 1865. This portrait of 1868 was partly Manet's thank-you. Zola sits at his desk surrounded by things that are really about the friendship between them. Pinned to the wall behind him is a small reproduction of that same Olympia, so the disgraced painting reappears here as a badge of loyalty. Beside it are a Spanish print after Velazquez and a Japanese woodblock print, tastes the two men shared. The Salon, which had rejected so much of Manet's work, accepted this one.