Completed in 1862, when Manet was only 30, the painting depicts a young woman dressed up as an espada: the bullfighting participant who slays the beast after the matador is done.

Manet captured the spectacle of the moment in his 19th-century image of a deceased toreador Edouard Manet’s “The Dead Toreador,” ca. 1864. On view at the National Gallery of Art.

The bullfight, whether you call it sport, art, or another term with less affection, is described as a thing of beauty, of dance, of artistry, of man against beast. For decades writers have lauded ...

Édouard Manet: We thought we knew him. An upper-class bon vivant, a fervent modernist who flouted artistic traditions but remained a realist even as he blazed a path for the Impressionists (whom ...

“Manet/Degas,” an exhibition opening March 28 at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, aims to trace the evolution of French painting through the lens of these friends and rivals.