Line in Front of the Butcher Shop

Museum record 103109: Line in Front of the Butcher Shop by Édouard Manet. A verified entry point for discovery.

What to notice

For Line in Front of the Butcher Shop (record 103109), start with modern, expressive, atmospheric. Compare the focal subject, edge treatment, and atmosphere before moving on.

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As a member of the National Guard during the Prussian siege of 1870, Edouard Manet witnessed the misery of wartime Paris. He wrote, "[The] butcher shops open only three times a week, and there are queues in front of their doors from four in the morning, and the last in line get nothing." The abstract patterns of arrayed umbrellas in this print recall the work of the Japanese printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige. The bayonet rising above the umbrellas, however, reveals the military presence required to…