The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags
A Paris side street hung with tricolour flags for a national holiday, a one-legged workman crossing below — seen from Manet's own studio window.
rue de Berne
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags — at a glance
- Artist
- Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
- Year
- 1878
- Movement
- Impressionism / Realism
- Place
- Rue Mosnier (now Rue de Berne), Europe quarter, Paris 8e
- Viewpoint
- Down from Manet's studio window — the street survives, renamed and rebuilt
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 66 × 81 cm
- Now at
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Overview
The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags is one of two views Édouard Manet painted in June 1878 from the window of his studio, of the short street below hung with French tricolours for the Fête de la Paix — a state holiday marking recovery from the defeat of 1870 and the Commune. It is oil on canvas, about 66 by 81 cm, and it hangs in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Where was The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags painted?
Scholarship The Rue Mosnier was a newly cut street in the Europe quarter of the eighth arrondissement, off the Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, near the Gare Saint-Lazare cutting; Manet had a studio at 4 Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg overlooking it. The street was renamed Rue de Berne in 1884 and still exists, though rebuilt; the railway is still close by. The picture is a downward view of that street rather than a marked spot.
What is in the painting?
The street runs back on a diagonal from the lower right. Large tricolour flags hang from the buildings on both sides, some blurred by wind. A few cabs and figures are on the roadway; on the left, hoardings and rubble mark a building site. In the foreground, small and easily missed, a man on crutches with one leg — probably a war-wounded labourer — makes his way along the pavement past a paviour's pile of stones.
Look closely
The wind-blown flags
Large tricolours hang from both sides of the street, some dashed in and blurred by the wind.
The man on crutches
A war-wounded labourer with one leg makes his way along the pavement, small in the foreground.
The building site
Hoardings, rubble and a paviour's pile of stones on the left — the street still half-built.
The oblique view
Manet looks steeply down and along the street from his upper studio window.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A steep diagonal down the flag-hung street, painted fast and loose, with the limping man low in the foreground.
Scholarship Manet takes the raised, oblique view and works it in rapid, sketchy strokes — the flags especially are dashed in. The eye is drawn down the bright street, then caught by the small dark figure of the disabled workman at the bottom edge.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
The holiday and its cost
The picture is usually read as a quiet counterpoint: the official flags of national recovery above, and below them a crippled worker and a building site — the ordinary, unhealed reality under the celebration. Manet left no statement, but the juxtaposition is pointed.
History & provenance
The painting passed through French and other collections and was acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, in 1989.
Sources
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles — collection entry for Édouard Manet, ‘The Rue Mosnier with Flags’ (1878; oil on canvas, c. 66 × 81 cm)
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare’ (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998)
Related paintings
The Railway
1873
Manet beside the Gare Saint-Lazare in 1873 — the same quarter, the same steam and railings.
Vue de toits
1878
Caillebotte's rooftop view of the neighbouring quarter, also 1878.
Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge
1870
Manet's other quick Paris street view, painted during the 1870 siege.
More by Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The Railway
Music in the Tuileries
