Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher)

1865/67

Édouard Manet
French, 1832-1883

This painting and Beggar with Oysters were probably conceived as companion pieces. Édouard Manet exhibited them together in 1872, along with paintings of an absinthe drinker and a ragpicker, under the collective title Philosophers. The beggars of Paris, nonconformist types under threat from government schemes intended to drive them out of the city, held a particular fascination for Realist artists and writers. By setting his large-scale figures against empty, dark backgrounds, Manet added to their portraitlike, indeed heroic, presence. By a remarkable coincidence, at the turn of the 20th century, these two closely related works found their way by very different means to the Art Institute’s collection.

Status: On View, Gallery 222
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Édouard Manet
Title: Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher)
Place: France (Object made in)
Date: 1860–1870
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Manet
Dimensions: 187.7 × 109.9 cm (73 7/8 × 43 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: A. A. Munger Collection
Reference Number: 1910.304
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/95183/manifest.json

Émile Zola, Édouard Manet: étude biographique et critique (Paris: E. Dentu, 1867), p. 39.
Hippolyte Babou, “Les dissidents de l’exposition: M. Édouard Manet,” Revue libérale 2 (June–July 1867), pp. 288–89.
Eugène Muntz, “Exposition internationale de Munich,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts (October 1869), p. 309.
Jules-Michel Godet, “Œuvres de M. Ed. Manet (24 photographies),” Bibliographie de la France 189 (April 20, 1872), cat. 5.
Anatole Godet, Exposition rétrospective de l’œuvre d’Edouard Manet, Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, 6 au 28 janvier 1884 (Paris, 1884), [no pag.].
Joséphin Péladan, “Le Procédé de Manet, d’après l’exposition faite à l’ École des Beaux-Arts,” L’Artiste (February 1884), p. 109.
Théodore Duret, Histoire d’Édouard Manet et de son œuvre (Paris: H. Floury, 1902), pp. 70, 208, no. 66.
Théodore Duret, Manet and the French Impressionists (London: Grant Richards and Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1910), p. 219, no. 66.
“Manet’s ‘Mendicant’,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 4, 4 (April 1911), pp. 62–63 (ill.).
Julius Meier-Graefe, Édouard Manet (Munich: R. Piper, 1912), pp. 56, 83, 310, fig. 47.
Antonin Proust, Édouard Manet (Paris: H. Laurens, 1913), pp. 53, 164.
Emil Waldmann, Édouard Manet (Berlin: Paul Cassirer, 1923), p. 46.
Jacques-Émile Blanche, Manet (Paris: Rieder, 1924), p. 38.
M. C., “Manets in the Art Institute,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 18, 4 (April 1924), pp. 47–48 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 59 (ill.).
Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Manet raconté par lui-même, (Paris: H. Laurens, 1926), vol. 1, pp. 76, fig. 80, 132, vol. 2, p. 128, no. 30.
Adolphe Tabarant, Manet: Histoire catalographique (Paris: Éditions Montaigne, 1931), p. 145-46, cat. 105.
Reginald Howard Wilenski, French Painting (Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1931), p. 245.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), pp. 55, 162.
Paul Jamot and Georges Wildenstein, Manet (Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, édition d’études et de documents, 1932), vol. 1, p. 130, cat. 112, vol. 2, p. 9, fig. 30.
“Manet and Renoir,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 29, 158 (December 1933), p. 17.
Daniel Catton Rich, “L’Exposition d’Art Français de l’Art Institute of Chicago,” Formes no. 33 (1933), p. 382.
Robert Rey, Manet (New York: French and European Publications and Paris: Hypérion Press, 1938), pp. 14, 162, pl. 45.
Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de l’Impressionnisme, vol. 2 (Paris and New York: Durand-Ruel, 1939), pp. 190, 206.
Gotthard Jedlicka, Édouard Manet (Erlenbach–Zürich: E. Rentsch, 1941), pp. 83, 397.
Hans Huth, “Impressionism comes to America,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, 29 (1946), pp. 239–40, 242, fig. 12.
Adolphe Tabarant, Manet et ses Œuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), pp. 115–16, 172, 536, 605 (ill.), no. 112.
Michel Florisoone, Manet (Monaco: Documents d’art, 1947), pp. XIX, XXI.
Jean Babelon, “La España de Manet y el Manet de España,” Clavileño 14 (January-February 1952), p. 16 (ill.).
John Richardson, Édouard Manet: Paintings and Drawings (London: Phaidon Press, 1958), p. 27.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 269–70.
Sandra Orienti and Phoebe Pool, The Complete Paintings of Manet (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967), p. 95, cat. 96 (ill.).
Anne Coffin Hanson, “Manet’s Subject Matter and a Source of Popular Imagery,” Museum Studies 3 (1968), pp. 74–75 (ill.), 77–78.
Germain Bazin, Édouard Manet (Milano: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1972), p. 77.
Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, Édouard Manet, catalogue raisonné (Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1975), vol. 1, p. 100–01 (ill.), cat. 100.
Anne Coffin Hanson, Manet and the Modern Tradition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 65.
Marilyn Brown, Gypsies and Other Bohemians: The Myth of the Artist in Nineteenth-Century France (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1985), p. 81.
Kathleen Adler, Manet (Topsfield, Massachusetts: Salem House/Phaidon, 1986), pp. 81–82, fig. 70.
Françoise Cachin, Manet (Paris: Chêne, 1990), p. 62, fig. 4.
Éric Darragon, Manet (Paris: Éditions Citadelle, 1991), pp. 163, 165, fig. 87.
Michael Fried, Manet’s Modernism or, The Face of Painting in the 1860s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 333–36, fig. 156.
James N. Wood, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), p. 31 (ill.).
Richard R. Brettell and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 256, 258–59, 262, fig. 68a.
Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008; revised ed., Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 30–31, cat. 3 (ill.).
James H. Rubin, Manet: Initial M, Hand and Eye (Paris: Flammarion, 2010), pp. 130, 134, fig. 16.
Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, “The First Purchases of Paul Durand-Ruel from Édouard Manet, 1872–1873,” in Stéphane Guégan, et al., Manet: The Man Who Invented Modernity, exh. cat. (Gallimard/Musée d’Orsay, 2011), pp. 284–85.
Douglas Druick, “Material Perspectives: The Art Object, the Art Museum, and the History of Art,” in Histoire de l’Art du XIXe Siècle (Paris: École du Louvre, 2012), pp. 276, fig. 5.
“Manet, Cat. 11 Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher),” in Manet Paintings and Works on Paper at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2017), https://publications.artic.edu/manet/reader/manetart/section/140020.

Paris, Avenue de l’Alma, Exposition particulière de Manet, 1867, no. 31 or 32, as Philosophe.
Munich, Internationalen Kunstausstellung, July 20–October 31, 1869, no. 1361 as Der Philosoph.
London, 168 New Bond Street, Third Exhibition of the Society of French Artists, 1872, cat. 31, as A Beggar.
Paris, École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition posthume Manet, January 1884, cat. 29 or 30.
New York, National Academy of Design, Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris, April 10–May 25, 1886, cat. 240.
London, Grafton Galleries, A Selection from the Pictures by Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, 1905, cat. 97.
Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Inaugural exhibition, January 7–February 7, 1915, cat. 242.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1933, cat. 331.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum, Manet and Renoir, November–December 1933, no cat.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1934, cat. 250.
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Two Sides of the Medal. French Paintings from Gerome to Gauguin, September 25–October 31, 1954, cat. 17.
Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, 50th Anniversary Exhibition, November 2, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat.
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Édouard Manet 1832-1883, November 3–December 11, 1966, no. 75; traveled to Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, January 13–February 19, 1967.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, A World of Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1893–1993, November 1, 1993–January 9, 1994, no cat.
Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Manet/Velasquèz: la manière espagnole au XIXe siècle, September 16, 2002–January 12, 2003, cat. 91; traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manet/Velázquez. The French Taste for Spanish Painting, March 4–June 8, 2003, cat. 146.
Fort Worth, Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from The Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–November 2, 2008, cat. 3.
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Manet - Painting the Gaze, May 27-September 4, 2016.
Pasadena, Norton Simon Mseum of Art, Masterpiece Exchange - Manet’s Philosophers from the Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 19, 2021-Feb. 28, 2022.

The artist, until 1872; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, January 1872, for 1,000 or 1,500 francs [per Durand-Ruel and Durand-Ruel, 2011, 284–85]; sold to Jean-Baptiste Faure (d. 1914), Paris, November 13, 1882, along with two other paintings for 5,750 francs (known as “Philosophies”) [per the Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1877 (as no. 1189) and in the stock book for 1880–84 (as no. 1171, Le Mendiant, and also as no. 2628, Le Philosophe); copy of archival reference in curatorial object file]; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, December 31, 1898, for 12,000 francs [per Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1891 (no. 4934); copy of archival reference in curatorial object file]; sold to Durand-Ruel, New York, May 1909 [per Durand-Ruel, New York, undated stock book (no. 3321), copy of archival reference in curatorial object file]; sold to The Art Institute of Chicago, February 17, 1911.

Rouart and Wildenstein 100

Cat. 11 Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher), 1865/67

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