Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus

Painted by Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

Oil on canvas
111 x 70 cm
Currently on display in Gallery 65 Pissarro and the Impressionists

This portrait’s subject is Fanny Claus (1846–77), the closest friend of Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff. Fanny was a concert violinist and a member of the first all-woman string quartet. She was one of Manet’s favourite sitters and a member of a close-knit group of friends who also provided the artist with models. She married the artist Pierre Prins (1838–1913), another friend of Manet’s, in 1869, but died of tuberculosis just eight years later at the age of 30.