Manet painted Jeanne Demarsy like something out of the pages of Vogue.

Parisian actress Mlle Jeanne Demarsy was your classic European starlet of the stage, and the Impressionists loved her. Sixteen and full of fire, Demarsy, who was raised by a bookbinder father, went on to be a model as well as an independent woman who graced the stage. She landed heavy hitter roles. One of those roles was as Jacques Offennbach’s Venus in the opera "Orpheus in the Underworld." Look at that poise, that upturned nose. It’s a face sculpted for paintings! Demarsy had connections in the art world. In fact, it was thanks to Pierre-Auguste Renoir that Demarsy was introduced to Manet, landing her biggest role yet! "Spring" in the seasons.

Toward the end of his career, Manet planned a set of paintings of the four seasons. Jeanne (Spring) is the allegory of spring. Look at all those flowers adorning her dress and bonnet. They're perfect for any fashion magazine nowadays, even if florals for spring aren't exactly groundbreaking. Seeing this, however, you may never have thought of flowers and fashion as being part of Manet’s body of work. But he was always fascinated by women's fashion, and he captured these motifs in his later years, playing into the hands of what the Paris Salon favored. After years of controversy and outrage provoked by Manet's iconoclastic and sexually charged paintings, the salon welcomed the lighter, cheerier, and more modest Jeanne (Spring). 

In fact, Jeanne (Spring) made a big splash in Manet’s career. The artist debuted the portrait in the Paris Salon of 1882, and it was a huge success, his own Mona Lisa. But alas, this would be Manet's last major public exhibition before gangrene took him. Ouch to a gargantuan degree. Something horrific also happened to Jeanne. For over a century, this sunshine-inspired painting was stored in the shadows. The outrage is real.