The Bay of Arcachon

By the time Manet set up this small panel, Paris had just survived a four-month siege. Prussian armies had ringed the city through the winter of 1870 into 1871, and Manet had served out those months in the National Guard. When the armistice came, he went south to rejoin his wife and mother, and the family took a small villa on the beach at Arcachon, on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux. From its terrace he watched the bay for weeks, the tide going in and out, the sailboats crossing, the light changing over the water. He worked here largely in the open air, something he had rarely done, painting fast and on panels no bigger than a sheet of writing paper. This is one of about six pictures he brought home from that month by the sea. He packed up and left at the end of March 1871.