In The Balcony (Manet), how is the Inspiration and description discussed?
The painting, inspired by Majas on the Balcony by Francisco Goya, was created at the same time and with the same purpose as Luncheon in the Studio.
The three characters, who were all friends of Manet, seem to be disconnected from each other: while Berthe Morisot, on the left, looks like a romantic and inaccessible heroine, the young violinist Fanny Claus and the painter Antoine Guillemet seem to display indifference. The boy in the background is probably Manet's son, Léon. Just behind the railings, there are a hydrangea in a ceramic pot, and a dog with a ball below Morisot's chair.This was the first portrait of Morisot by Manet.  Manet adopts a restrained colour palette, dominated by white, green and black, with accents of blue (Guillemet's tie) and red (Morisot's fan).
Manet made many preparatory studies, painting the four subjects individually many times: Guillemet as many as fifteen times.  A preparatory study for The Balcony was painted at Boulogne in 1868.  This unfinished portrait of Fanny Claus, the closest friend of Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff; Claus married Manet's friend Pierre Prins in 1869.  The work was bought after Manet's death in a studio sale by John Singer Sargent.  The portrait had only been seen once in public since it was first painted in 1868, but in 2012 the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford succeeded in raising the funds to acquire it and keep it permanently in a public collection in the United Kingdom.
Francisco Goya Majas on the Balcony Berthe Morisot Antoine Guillemet John Singer Sargent Ashmolean Museum Fanny Claus Suzanne Leenhoff Boulogne hydrangea Luncheon in the Studio 1868