Il signor Pertuiset, cacciatore di leoni

By 1881 Manet was 49 and seriously ill, with two years of life left, and he had spent his whole career being rejected or ridiculed by the official Salon. That spring the Salon finally gave him a medal, second class, the only official honour he would ever receive, and it was for this painting. Eugène Pertuiset was a real Paris celebrity who hunted big game and dealt in weapons, and here he kneels with his rifle beside a dead lion. Manet had never been to Africa or seen a lion hunt, so the setting is invented, the trees washed in the violet shadow that critics complained about. Pertuiset does not strike the heroic pose his admirers expected. He rests on one knee, rifle upright, looking off to the side as though the hunt were already behind him.