think not. It was painted early in the sixties, probably about the
same period as the Luxembourg picture, when the effects of his Spanish
travel were wearing off, and Paris was beginning to command his art.
Manet used to say, "When Degas was painting Semiramis I was painting
modern Paris." It would have been more true to have said modern Spain.
For it was in Spain that Manet found his inspiration. He had not been
to Holland when he painted his Spanish pictures. Velasquez clearly
inspired them; but there never was in his work any of the noble
delicacies of the Spaniard; it was always nearer to the plainer and
more--forgive the phrase--yokel-like eloquence of Hals. The art of
Hals he seemed to have divined; it seems to have come instinctively to
him.

Manet went to Spain after a few months spent in Couture's studio. Like
all the great artists of our time, he was self-educated--Whistler,
Degas, Courbet, Corot, and Manet wasted little time in other men's
studios. Soon after his return from Spain, by some piece of good luck,
Manet was awarded _une mention honorable_ at the Salon for his
portrait of a toreador. Why this honour was conferred upon him it is
difficult to guess. It must have been the result of some special
influence exerted at a special moment, for ever after--down to the
year of his death--his pictures were considered as an excrescence on
the annual exhibitions at the _Salon_. Every year--down to the year of
his death--the jury, M. Bouguereau et Cie., lamented that they were
powerless to reject these ridiculous pictures. Manet had been placed
_hors concours_, and they could do nothing. They could do nothing
except stand before his pictures and laugh. Oh, I remember it all very
well. We were taught at the Beaux-Arts to consider Manet an absurd
person or else an _epateur_, who, not being able to paint like M.
Gerome, determined to astonish. I remember perfectly well the derision