Boy blowing bubbles
1867
oil
canvas
From the collection of Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
About the artist
Artist
Edouard Manet
Édouard Manet didn’t have much time to make his mark—he died at 51—but he used every year.
See the richer artist page1867
oil
canvas
From the collection of Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
Boy blowing bubbles is a 1867 oil by Edouard Manet, a Impressionism work, depicting Soap Bubble, held at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
The painting depicts a young boy in a white shirt and light jacket, standing behind a wooden table. He is blowing bubbles with a stick, holding a bowl in his left hand. The background is dark, with the boy illuminated by a light source from the left. The boy's face is turned to the side, and his eyes are focused on the bubbles. His right arm is raised, and his left arm is bent, holding the bowl. The bubbles are floating upwards, and the boy's expression is one of concentration. The painting's use of light and shadow creates a sense of depth and dimensionality. If you're interested in learning more about the artist behind this work, you might want to look up Édouard Manet.
Boy Blowing Bubbles (also known as The Soap Bubbles; French: Les Bulles de savon) is an 1867 oil-on-canvas painting by Édouard Manet, who gave it its present title. It is now in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, in Lisbon, whose founder acquired it via André Weil in New York in November 1943.
Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The painting depicts Léon Koelin-Leenhoff, the out-of-wedlock son (possibly fathered by Manet or by Manet's father) of Manet's future wife, Suzanne Leenhoff. The painting shows him aged 15 blowing soap bubbles, a traditional symbol of the brevity of life. Manet's teacher Thomas Couture had painted a work with the same subject in 1859 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), but it differs from Manet's naturalistic treatment by the inclusion of numerous narrative and symbolic details, such as school books and a laurel wreath. Manet's painting has more in common with an 18th-century prototype,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Édouard Manet didn’t have much time to make his mark—he died at 51—but he used every year.
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