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The Races at Longchamp
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
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.
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