Boy with cherries

To the evident portrait, Manet associates another genre, a still life, while the cherries represent an allegory for the senses. Furthermore, there is an underlying concept of modernity in the representation of everyday life as the subject for the painting, a concept that follows the Baudelarian perspective of asserting contemporary reality. However, it seems likely that Manet repainted the boy’s hands, since they reveal the material and stylistic quality characteristic of his later works.