Édouard Manet at the Races

Édouard Manet at the Races is a complex preparatory study by Edgar Degas (1863-1873), executed primarily in graphite and black chalk. This drawing captures Degas's close friend and artistic peer, Édouard Manet, situated within the fashionable setting of the racetrack. The composition, although seemingly informal, reveals Degas’s characteristic attention to posture and movement. Manet is shown in profile, likely observing the action, embodying the detached yet engaged attitude often adopted by the flâneur of the period.

Degas utilized the immediacy of the graphite and chalk medium to rapidly sketch the scene, employing strong contours and varying pressure to suggest volume and light. This method reflects the artist’s burgeoning commitment to documenting Parisian sporting culture, where men of high society gathered. While the precise dating spans the transitional decade of the 1860s and 70s, the work clearly signals the shift toward modern subject matter central to the Impressionist circle. Degas often used the subject of the races not merely for landscape but as a vehicle for observing contemporary social dynamics.

The classification of this piece as a drawing highlights Degas’s foundational skills in draftsmanship, which informed his later, more famous oils and pastels. Housed in the extensive collection of European drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Édouard Manet at the Races provides essential insight into the shared lives and creative interests of two giants of French modernism. The work's presence in a major museum collection ensures that high-quality prints remain accessible to enthusiasts worldwide.