The Italian

The Italian, also known as L’Italienne, is a costume portrait by Édouard Manet dated 1860 in Rouart and Wildenstein's catalogue.^[1] A woman with crossed arms faces the viewer beneath an angled white headcloth. Her bright sleeves and bare skin stand against a dark brown setting, while red and green fabric introduces a denser pattern below.

The Woman Called Italian

Rouart and Wildenstein identify the model as Agostina Segatori and place the painting in Manet's rue de Douai studio. The Vereniging Rembrandt, discussing the work more recently, describes the identification as probable.^[1][3] The name offers a connection with a professional model, while the painting's title directs attention to her Italian costume.

Here, the distinctive clothing occupies almost as much attention as the face. The model's presence is carried through the whole arrangement of her body, rather than through facial likeness alone.

Headcloth and Face

The white cloth above the hair forms a broad, irregular rectangle. Its upper edge tilts across the dark field, while smaller gray shapes break its brightness into folds. Because the cloth projects above the head, it gives the figure an emphatic upper boundary without introducing an elaborate hat.

Below it, black hair curves around the forehead and cheeks. A loose strand crosses the forehead near the centre. The dark hair helps separate the pale face from the light cloth, allowing the two bright areas to remain distinct.

The eyes look outward beneath strongly marked brows. Warm pink passages sit beside cooler shadows around the nose and jaw, and the lips are picked out with small reddish touches. The head's slight inclination softens the otherwise upright pose. Its expression remains open enough to hold attention without resolving into a clearly narrated action.

Jewellery and White Sleeves

Large hoop earrings repeat the curves beside the face. The hoop on the viewer's left is particularly clear against the dark hair and background; the other appears more narrowly along the opposite side. Their warm, broken edges contrast with the solid dark shape of the hair.

A thin necklace descends towards an open oval pendant. This smaller loop introduces another curved shape beneath the chin, drawing attention to the light area between the face and the clothing.

The chemise spreads out into puffed sleeves. Manet gives the folds changing widths: broad pale surfaces turn into narrow gray-blue shadows, then open again into white. At the near shoulder, the sleeve projects towards the viewer before giving way to the exposed upper arm. The fabric's broken angles make its softness visible without smoothing away the brushwork.

Crossed Arms

The bare forearms form a wide band across the lower part of the figure. One hand rests against the opposite arm, while the other is partly concealed by the crossing shapes. This compact arrangement leaves little empty space between the limbs and the body.

The upper arm nearest us has a broad pale surface, with cooler shadows gathering towards its outer edge. The forearm beneath it runs almost horizontally. Their overlap gives the body a sense of volume without requiring a detailed description of the surrounding space.

Dark bands near the wrists interrupt the skin's lighter passages. They also help the viewer follow the meeting of hand, forearm and fabric, where several similarly pale shapes come close together. Across this area, the variations in tone matter as much as the outer outline. The arms provide a firm foreground structure beneath the more delicately divided face and jewellery.

Patterned Clothing and the Dark Setting

Red strips descend from the shoulders over the white chemise. Near the waist, narrow dark and warm-coloured edges separate the light upper clothing from the apron. At the right, a larger red passage extends down beside the body, carrying that colour towards the bottom of the canvas.

The apron has a different rhythm. Red flower-like patches are scattered among green, tan and gray strokes. Some shapes seem to join, while others break apart into separate marks. Its pattern remains lively because Manet does not give every motif an equally firm boundary.

Behind the figure, the brown-black field offers little sense of a particular room. Warmer strokes emerge beside the right shoulder, but they do not become a complete setting. The dark area makes the white sleeves conspicuous and lets the crossed arms project forward. It also leaves the clothing's smaller colours comparatively isolated, so that a narrow red strip can carry considerable visual weight.

A Studio Costume Comparison

Manet's The Spanish Singer, also painted in 1860, provides a useful comparison. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes it as a studio composition made with a model, props and costumes the artist kept on hand.^[4] Its apparent realism includes an awkward detail: the musician holds a guitar left-handed although it is strung for a right-handed player.

The singer occupies a much larger canvas, measuring 147.3 × 114.3 cm.^[4] His seated figure extends almost from head to foot, with a bench behind him and objects on the floor. His hands engage with an instrument, opening the pose into a sequence of different actions.

The Italian's framing is closer. Her crossed arms gather the body inward, and her costume fills much of the remaining space. In both paintings, white fabric becomes conspicuous against a dark setting, but the distribution differs: the singer's headcloth and shirt punctuate extensive black clothing, while the Italian's sleeves create broad light areas around her torso.

The comparison places the portrait within Manet's early interest in costumed figures. The singer went on to achieve success at the Salon of 1861.^[4] The Italian offers a quieter encounter, organized around a sustained pose and the relation of skin, cloth and dark surroundings.

A Mark and a Collecting History

Christie's describes the mark at the lower left as stamped initials, E.M., identified as Lugt 880.^[2] That description distinguishes the recorded mark from a handwritten signature or date. It belongs to the object's history alongside the names under which the painting has been catalogued.

The work passed through Manet's estate sale in February 1884. Alphonse Portier acquired it for the American collector Alexander Cassatt, Mary Cassatt's brother. It remained in the Cassatt family before appearing at a 1978 auction, where the later Coles owners acquired it.^[2]

In May 2018, the Van Gogh Museum tried to buy the painting with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt. The funder's account explains that another bidder went further, so the proposed acquisition did not take place.^[3] The painting remains recorded in a private collection.