A crouching child, drawn in red chalk, fills a sheet marked with a grid. The grid may have helped transfer the figure to a canvas, but the study matches no known composition by Édouard Manet. Held in a private collection in northern Italy, the drawing is the subject of research attributing it to the French painter, published in the October 2026 issue of The Burlington Magazine.
Francesco Baccanelli noticed the drawing while visiting the collection. Its owner showed him an inscription on the back of the mount naming Manet as the artist and said that no art historian had studied the sheet. Baccanelli sent a photograph to Emily Beeny, chief curator at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and a specialist in French painting and drawing.
The researchers’ proposed attribution rests on comparisons with other drawings by Manet and a physical examination of the work. Beeny identifies the sharp transitions between light and shadow, and the rounded fingers tapering towards their tips, as recurring features of his drawing. The use of red chalk also links the sheet to studies from life that Manet made in the 1850s and 1860s. Ultraviolet examination revealed a faded stamp from Manet’s studio in the lower right corner.
The identity of the child is less certain. Beeny and Baccanelli considered Alexandre, a young assistant who sometimes posed for Manet, but think the drawing appears to show a girl of about six. Beeny suggests she may be the same model depicted on the left of The Old Musician, noting the similarity of their hairstyles. That suggestion concerns the sitter’s identity: the drawing has not been identified as a preparatory study for the painting.
The research also traces part of the drawing’s ownership history. It was sold twice in the 1930s, first in Germany and then in Switzerland, without entering specialist studies of Manet. Those sales establish part of its journey, but the sheet’s earlier history and the composition for which it may have been intended remain unknown.
