Portrait of Charles Baudelaire in Profile

Description

Charles Baudelaire’s head appears in profile beneath a tall top hat in Édouard Manet’s etching. The lightly drawn face turns toward the right against a pale field. The sparse marks give the poet an immediate silhouette, allowing hat, features and the small shift of direction to carry a portrait that remains intimate rather than ceremonial.

Created in 1862–67, the work is an etching, giving Baudelaire’s likeness form through lines worked into a plate. The print’s intimacy makes room for a face considered closely, where a modest image can carry a strong personal presence. The portrait does not need to illustrate the sitter’s writings to connect art with a literary world. Its interest lies in encountering the poet as an individual, making the named subject human through the act of looking.

Read our guide to giclée prints, browse more Édouard Manet prints, or explore Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, in profile.