The Railway

The woman is Victorine Meurent, Manet's favorite model in the 1860s, and the child was the daughter of a fellow painter who allowed Manet to use his garden to create The Railway. The composition is a complex contrapuntal apposition of the two figures: one clad in a white dress trimmed with a blue bow and the other dressed in dark blue trimmed with white; one with hair bound by a narrow black ribbon and the other with flowing tresses under a black hat; and one a child standing and looking at anonymous trains and buildings in the background and the other a seated adult staring forward to confront viewers directly. Manet submitted four works to the Paris Salon of 1874. Of the four, only two were accepted, The Railway and a watercolor.