Masked Ball at the Opera

A dense, shimmering crowd of masked men and women jostles in the gaslit foyer of the Paris Opera during a carnival ball — gentlemen in black and top hats packed together beneath the balcony rail, dominoes and masks hiding the faces of the women, a harlequin in diamonded motley at the far left, and above them the legs and hems of the dancers on the mezzanine. Édouard Manet painted the picture in 1873, when the Opera ball was the most fashionable rendezvous of Parisian carnival, and he captures the press of bodies and the anonymity of the masked crowd with the abbreviated touch and startling pools of color of his new manner. The composition, cut off at the edges as if by photography, makes the picture feel like a glimpse stolen at the height of the revelry. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.