Polichinelle. Colour lithograph, retouched with white gouache. 1874. Guérin 79. Moreau-Nélaton 87. Bers 83. 46:33,5 cm.
Very rare proof impression of the 2 state (of 4) with the large beige tint stone. Before the numbered edition of 25 copies on Japan paper in the 3 (with the letters) and the two editions in the 4 state. Annotated "tiré ˆ 25 ex N.tés" below the subject, left, and with a verse by Théodore de Banville in the lower margin, both in pencil and brown ink.

The history of this print is well documented in the context of political caricature.

The lithograph shows Marshal Mac Mahon, nicknamed "Maréchal B‰ton", who had been elected President of the Republic in May 1873 after having directed the repression against the "Commune de Paris" two years earlier. Manet's political attitude and his disapproval of Mac Mahon is expressed by the fact that he represented him as "Polichinelle" - a figure of the Commedia dell'Arte - inspecting the troops. Although ManetÕs friend Edmund André served as a model for this grotesque and deceitful character, its reference to Marshal Mac Mahon was obvious to the people of the time. The distribution of the edition of "Le Temps" in which the lithograph was to appear was prohibited by the government and a large part of the edition was destroyed.

Manet had challenged a few of his writer friends, among them Mallarmé and Charles Cros to compose a quatrain for his lithograph, but de Banville's "Feroce & rose avec du feu dans ses prunelles / Effronté, saoul, divin, c'est lui Polichinelle!" was selected, written on the proof in autograph.

The details of creation and the editions are not very clear to this day. "Polichinelle" was the last lithograph Manet drew directly onto the stone. He drew the outlines first. Guérin mentions only three impressions of the drawing, which were printed by Ranon, a nephew of Lemercier. Guérin suggests that one of these proofs was used to apply a faint matrix to the colour stones. The colours were probably applied after a water-colour or a hand coloured black-and-white impression (cf. Sotheby's NY, 13 May 1988 and Rouart and Wildenstein, II, no 563). Furthermore, Guérin mentions three trial proofs in colour with the large beige tint stone. Manet alterated and corrected the colour stones several times before the impression.

The present impression seems to be the only colour trial impression that Manet revised again. It could have been the artistÕs own copy. A photograph taken in his studio after his death shows an impression with the same inscriptions and, above all, the same gouache stain that deleted the first word of the verse in pencil. Manet seems to have used the copy to try out changes on the tint stones. The removal of the beige tint stone for the later editions and its replacement by a much smaller grey stone is the most noticeable change in the artist's arrangement of colours.