Портрет мадемуазель Клаус

Manet painted this head over the winter of 1868 into 1869, while he was building the large picture now in the Musee d'Orsay called The Balcony, three figures behind green railings, the idea taken from Goya's women on a balcony. Fanny Claus was a violinist who played professionally in Paris and a close friend of the painter's wife Suzanne. The canvas used to be bigger. Manet cut it down, which is why Berthe Morisot, who posed for The Balcony as well, survives only as a fragment at the right edge. He never sold it. John Singer Sargent bought it at the studio sale after Manet's death in 1883 and took it to England, where it stayed in private hands until the Ashmolean raised the money to buy it in 2012.