Portrait of Georges Clemenceau

Around 1879 Manet grew interested in painting the politicians of the young French Republic, and he set down Georges Clemenceau, then a fierce radical deputy with a long career ahead of him. Decades later this same man would lead France through the end of the First World War. Manet suggested the speaker's rostrum with a few economical strokes to place Clemenceau in the Chamber of Deputies. He never quite finished the canvas, which was typical of him, and Clemenceau cared little for it. The sitter kept this version for years and then sold it off around 1905, after which it changed hands until a Texas museum bought it in 1981. Here he stands arms crossed, mid-argument, caught by a painter who would die only a few years later.