The Steamboat, Seascape with Porpoises by Manet in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

The Steamboat, Seascape with Porpoises

Édouard Manet, French, 1832 - 1883


Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: 1868

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 32 1/16 x 39 1/2 inches (81.4 x 100.3 cm)

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Currently not on view

Accession Number: 1954-66-3

Credit Line: Bequest of Anne Thomson in memory of her father, Frank Thomson, and her mother, Mary Elizabeth Clarke Thomson, 1954

Label: This broadly brushed painting is similar to two large canvases Manet made as a result of his 1864 trip to Boulogne, but a watercolor from one of Manet's 1868 sketchbooks suggests a later dating for this picture. The modern steamboat is juxtaposed with a carefully rendered sailing ship and a group of dolphins, a motif dating back to ancient art.

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/54675.html?mulR=795203175|1