Ritratto della contessa Albazzi

By 1880 Manet was a sick man, and the grand oils that had scandalised Paris were mostly behind him. He spent much of his last years making pastel portraits of women who passed through his studio, and this countess is one of them. Little is remembered of her beyond the name, but Manet gives her the full attention of a society portraitist, the pale face turned slightly, the touches of colour kept light and dry. Unusually, he worked this pastel not on paper but on a fine canvas stretched over a wooden panel, which held the soft chalk without letting it smudge. It is among the last things he made before he died in 1883, and it reached New York decades later with the collection of the dealer Justin Thannhauser.