After the sea, its creatures. This still life, in which you can
smell an odor of brine and seaweed, is one of Manet's finest. It
is painted with a bold, masterful touch. The artist has rendered
perfectly the belly and silver scales of the fish with its reddish
head, and it is quite recognizably a mullet and not a carp. Beside
it, the red gurnet gives a touch of brighter red. The oysters add
a note of freshness, and the lemon, Manet's favorite fruit, stands
out with a burst of brilliance against his grays and blacks.
The whole composition is seen against a somber
background of bluish tints. The cloth recalls the cold tones of Olympia.
Of the execution of this still life, exhibited with
others at the Martinet and Cadart galleries, Theophile Thore wrote
in Le Constitutionnel of May 16, 1865, "Certain works by M. Manet,
such as the still-life compositions in which he scatters fruit and
fish on a dazzling white cloth, are of a high pictorial quality."
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