The Lemon

The Lemon is a small-format oil on canvas still life measuring 14 by 22 cm, painted around 1880. The composition presents a single lemon, shown in close-up and roughly at natural size, lying on its side across a dark, metallic-grey plate. The fruit's tips point toward the lateral edges of the canvas, with an imaginary line between them rising slightly from left to right. The lemon is rendered in varied yellow tones, described by Françoise Cachin as a "harmony of grey and yellow," with paint applied in a partially impasto manner where individual brushstrokes remain clearly visible. The plate's bulging rim shimmers silver, and the lemon's yellow tone reflects on its smooth surface; Alfred Stevens called it a "Japanese plate," while Carol Armstrong identified it as a pewter dish.

The plate rests on a surface occupying roughly the lower two-thirds of the picture, light brown in the foreground and darkening toward the back, with a few dark strokes near the lower edge suggesting wood grain. A monochrome dark brown field forms the upper background. An off-canvas light source illuminates the fruit from the front. The loose brushwork corresponds to the painterly manner of Impressionism, and the canvas is signed "E. Manet" at the lower right, a signature added by Suzanne Manet after the painter's death.

Created around 1880, *The Lemon* is a late work by Édouard Manet, painted in oil on canvas. The piece measures 14 cm in height and 22 cm in width. The painting was owned by Isaac de Camondo before entering the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Manet signed the work in the lower right corner with "E. Manet"; however, this signature was added posthumously by his wife, Suzanne, after the artist's death. The work belongs to a series of still lifes Manet produced in his final years, drawing inspiration from Baroque Dutch and Spanish traditions while focusing on individual objects.

Created around 1880, The Lemon belongs to Édouard Manet's late period, a phase characterized by still lifes executed in an Impressionist style that frequently isolated individual objects as motifs. Although the work lacks a direct model, art historians situate it within the broader traditions of Dutch and Spanish Baroque painting. Manet himself described still life as the "touchstone of the painter," a genre comprising approximately one-fifth of his total output. While seventeenth-century Dutch precedents often utilized such imagery to illustrate themes of transience or vanitas, no such specific intention is documented for Manet; scholars suggest his focus may have been purely decorative, emphasizing surface splendor and color nuances over moralizing content. Painted just three years before his death, the small-scale work is noted for its singular power, serving as a laboratory where the artist reduced composition to essential elements of color, texture, and simplicity.