Édouard Manet - The Croquet Party 1871
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The Croquet Party 1871
45x73cm oil/canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
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From Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City:
Manet shows a group of his family and friends playing croquet-a pastime newly imported from England-at the fashionable resort of Boulogne on the Normandy Coast. He masterfully evokes the sea breeze that tugs at skirts, blows through flags and causes a woman to clutch at her hat. Croquet was known as an occasion for dalliance between the sexes. Manet hints at a flirtatious relationship between his stepson, Léon Leenhoff, in brown trousers, and a young artist, Jeanne Gonzalès, who stands close by in fashionable yellow and blue attire.