Endless games of croquet were played in the garden of Alfred Stevens. Manet had picked up on the theme he had already used at Boulogne-sur-Mer, but this time with the figures are arranged diagonally to evoke distance. Manet returns to an impressionist manner in this work but the color is not broken up prismatically, as in comparable paintings by Renoir or Monet. Victorine Meurent returns as a model and is the woman holding the racket. The others are Alice Lecouve, Paul Roudier, and the man sitting is said to be Stevens. |
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