This painting, found in Manet’s studio after his death, was never exhibited, and no indication of its original title has been discovered. Purchased by Edgar Degas, it was listed in early sales as Indian Woman or Mexican Woman. The gypsy designation appeared relatively late but has been accepted. Though a date in the 1860s is traditional — based on comparisons with Spanish dancers whom Manet saw perform at the Paris Hippodrome in 1862 — Juliet Wilson-Bareau recently suggested that the composition is closer to works from the 1870s.

Spanish culture and painting fascinated Manet, and the loose, expressive brushwork of Velázquez and Goya heavily influenced him. The subject and identity of the model are perhaps less critical for the interpretation than the way in which the artist presents this exotic "other," who transgresses the norms associated with respectable French women of the era. Dark skin and tousled black hair mark her as an outsider, as does the bold, frontal pose. With one hand on her hip and a cigarette dangling from her lips, she exudes audacious self-confidence. Her gaze into the distance lends a thoughtful, even contemplative air. Manet’s composition is equally daring. It includes passages that are difficult to read and optical inconsistencies, like the form on which the woman leans. Objects are cropped at unusual places — the horse’s head is cut off behind the ear. Manet seems to have considered the canvas unfinished, and it is difficult to know how he would have completed it. Gypsy with a Cigarette thus remains a tantalizing work, one of Manet’s most enigmatic images of a daydreaming woman.

Gallery Label:

• (2013) Princeton University Art Museum Handbook of the Collections Revised and Expanded Edition (2nd ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, p. 214 ISBN: 978-0943012414.
• Gypsy with a Cigarette (y1979-55). Princeton University Art Museum.