ビールを運ぶ女給

In the late 1870s Manet spent evenings in the noisy café-concerts of Paris, cheap music halls where working people drank beer and watched a show. He started a large canvas of one of them, the Brasserie de Reichshoffen, then changed his mind and cut it in two, finishing each half on its own. This is the right-hand piece. A waitress pauses mid-turn, a glass of bock beer in each hand, her eyes already on the next customer while a man in a hat watches the stage in front of them. Nothing is posed. Manet was after the ordinary rush of the place, the way a busy server barely stops moving, and behind them a dancer's blue costume marks the edge of the entertainment they've both half-forgotten.