Édouard Manet, Au Bal (At the Ball), 1870-1880. Oil on canvas. 22 x 14 in. (55.7 x 35.5 cm). The Courtauld Gallery.
Édouard Manet’s Au Bal represents a fashionable young society figure and family friend of the artist, Marguerite de Conflans, at a soirée. Manet depicted the sitter at least five times. Here, she appears in profile, caught in a moment of reverie while admiring herself in a mirror. The idealized, intensely detailed and hyper-polished style typical of mid-19th-century Academic portraiture is not in evidence here, nor is Mane't’s typical employment of bold colors and strong contrasts. Instead, his rendering of the Parisienne, which is closely cropped and seemingly quickly and loosely executed in delicate pastel tones, exudes a charmingly modern informality and immediacy.