Detail of Races at Longchamp by Manet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: The Races at Longchamp

Artist: Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)

Date: 1866

Geography: Country of Origin France

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 17 5/16 × 33 1/8 in. (44 × 84.2 cm)
Framed: 27 3/8 in. × 43 1/4 in. × 4 in. (69.5 × 109.9 × 10.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection (1922.424)

This painting captures the excitement of the popular Longchamp racetrack in the Bois de Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris, which opened in 1857. Whereas Degas’s racetrack paintings often focused on the moments at the start of a race, Manet here recorded the last stretch, as the horses rush past the finish line, indicated by the raised flag and the pole with a circular top. Manet shunned traditional representations of the sport, which showed races from the side, and instead composed the scene so that the throng of horses and jockeys thunders straight toward the viewer.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844682