A guitarist sits mid-strum, one foot propped casually on a bench, dressed like a Spanish street performer. He was actually a hired model, posed in a Paris studio, and this painting made Manet's name.
What you're looking at
Édouard Manet painted The Spanish Singer in 1860, and it became the first painting he exhibited to win real public acclaim, earning an honorable mention at the 1861 Salon. The recognition was significant enough that it prompted the young Edgar Degas, later a close friend of Manet's, to seek him out after seeing it. The critic Théophile Gautier praised the work by writing, "We can almost hear him sing" — high praise at the time for a painting's ability to suggest sound and presence.
A small mistake that didn't stop the acclaim
Not every critic was purely complimentary. Charles Baudelaire pointed out that the guitar's strings don't quite match how the singer's hands are actually playing them, a small technical inconsistency in an otherwise celebrated painting. Manet later explained the discrepancy by saying he had checked the picture using a small black mirror, a device some painters of the era used to judge tonal values and composition, and the reflection had looked correct to him at the time. Down near the singer's feet, his simple canvas espadrilles rest casually on the bench, and beside him, Manet signed his own name directly onto the canvas next to a small still life of a jug and onions.
One detail to look for
Look at the guitarist's hands against the strings. Baudelaire's observation still holds up: the fingering doesn't perfectly match the instrument, a rare documented slip in an otherwise career-making painting.
See it at its real size
Our canvas print is labeled against the true size of the original — 147.3 x 114.3 cm — so what you're hanging is honestly scaled to the painting Manet made. Shop the canvas print.