The Art of Deception

Edouard Manet painted two canvases of a serving girl at the Folies Bergère.

The first, in 1881, was more a study for the major work in the following year. It was a carefree exercise featuring a worldly blonde, whom, one presumes, was one of the many prostitutes who paraded their charms at the music hall.

Manet’s painting in 1882 of a bar at the Folies Bergère depicts Suzon, one of the regular barmaids. On her face is a look of detachment and melancholy, Around her neck is a locket, a token of another life? A world away from the suggestive innuendos of the men who lingered at the bar of the Folies Bergère