Mrs. Horace Havemeyer

Havemeyer, Doris Dick

American, 1890 - 1982

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A densely packed crowd of men and women, all of them with pale skin and most of them wearing black, stand in a theater lobby beneath a mezzanine level that runs close to the top edge of the composition in this horizontal painting. Because the crowd spans the width of the composition, the first impression is of a mass of deep black stretching across the canvas. Slowly, individual faces and poses become evident. Five of the women wear black, oval masks that cover their eyes and noses, and one more mask has fallen onto the rust-red floor below. Two women, wearing bright white and colorful clothing, engage some of the men in conversation. A man cropped by the left edge of the painting wears the green, red, and gold costume and pointed cap of a court jester. Two gold and glass wall sconces hang on the cream-colored wall behind the crowd, one near each top corner. The space within the mezzanine level above is painted loosely so details are difficult to make out, but a pair of legs clad in black britches and white stockings seems to stand with ankles crossed at the top center. A leg wearing a red, high-heeled ankle boot dangles outside of the railing to the right. The brushstrokes are loose throughout. The artist’s signature appears on a piece of discarded paper on the floor near the lower right corner: “Manet.”
Edouard Manet, Masked Ball at the Opera, 1873, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Horace Havemeyer in memory of her mother-in-law, Louisine W. Havemeyer, 1982.75.1

Masked Ball at the Opera

Edouard Manet · 1873 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.75.1

Bibliography

1961

  • Havemeyer, Louisine W. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York, 1961.

1983

  • Impressionist Paintings and Drawings from the Estate of Doris D. Havemeyer, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 18 May 1983

1986

  • Weitzenhoffer, Frances. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986.