Description
Chez Tortoni is a small painting by Édouard Manet from around 1875: a man in a black top hat and dark coat sits at a café table by a window, pencil poised over a sheet of paper, and glances up at us for a moment, with a tall glass of beer at his side. The original, oil on canvas measuring 26 x 34 cm, hung in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston until it was stolen in 1990; it has been missing ever since. Our painter paints it for you by hand in oil on canvas, in 6 landscape sizes from 40 x 30 to 75 x 58 cm. Before we pack it, we send you a photograph of it.
| Title: | Chez Tortoni |
| Other titles: | Le Journaliste (French title) · The Journalist |
| Painter: | Édouard Manet (1832–1883) |
| Year painted: | c. 1875 |
| Original size: | 26 cm x 34 cm (height x width) |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Realism and Impressionism |
| Located at: | Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, United States – stolen in 1990, still missing |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted in oil on canvas, 6 sizes or made to measure |
Chez Tortoni – Édouard Manet
What does Chez Tortoni show?
Painted from the waist up and pushed into the right half of the canvas, the man wears a tall black top hat pulled low and a black coat, with a white collar and cuff catching the light. His face is ruddy, his eyes dark, his moustache curled slightly outwards; a tiny red mark shows on his lapel.
Both hands rest on a dark round table: the left holds down a white sheet, the right grips a pencil touching the paper. Yet he is not writing; Manet caught him at the instant he looks up, straight at the viewer.
On the left of the table stands a tall stemmed glass, half full of amber beer. The background is dashed off in quick, rough strokes: pale greys, beiges and pinks on the left, split by a dark band, a brown wall behind him, and on the right a black strip and part of a chair back glinting gold.
Who is the man with the pencil?
Nobody knows. Despite his striking features he was never identified, and his name and occupation went unrecorded. The idea that he is the painter Georges Chenard-Huché rests on no evidence.
The title is not Manet’s either. The work was first called simply Man Seated at a Table, and in the early 20th century Manet’s biographers renamed it The Journalist, though nothing on the canvas clearly points to that trade. He might be jotting down thoughts, marking up a newspaper or sketching.
Chez Tortoni means at Tortoni’s, after the Café Tortoni on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris, a 19th-century haunt of journalists, stockbrokers, writers and artists. Manet was a regular and lunched there several times with the poet Charles Baudelaire. Whether the scene is set there remains open: the pale area on the left could be a window or a mirror.
Why is this small painting so well known?
Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life and a pivotal figure between Realism and Impressionism. Between 1877 and 1881 he painted a run of scenes in the Paris cafés he frequented himself, answering Baudelaire’s call to paint the life of one’s own time; this lone customer belongs to that series.
Beside the signature at lower left are faint figures the museum read as 75, hence the date of around 1875; several art historians place the work a little later, since Manet took up café scenes in earnest only in the late 1870s.
To the wider public it is known above all for the theft of 1990, and it has turned up in television series such as the French Lupin. A short Wikipedia article on the painting, written in English, tells its story.
Where is the original today?
The original is oil on canvas, just 26 x 34 cm (height x width). Its first known owner was Alphonse Kann of Saint-Germain-en-Laye; in 1922 the American painter Louis Kronberg acquired it for Isabella Stewart Gardner, who hung it in the Blue Room of her Boston museum beneath Manet’s portrait of his mother.
On 18 March 1990 thieves dressed as police officers took several works from the museum, among them pieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer, and this small canvas with them.
None of the stolen works has been recovered. The original has not been seen since 1990; we know it today from a surviving photograph.
Chez Tortoni or another Manet?
Chez Tortoni is a canvas painting for lovers of Paris, of cafés and of portraits that return your gaze.
Another gentleman in a top hat, full length in a brown cloak, stands in The Absinthe Drinker. A young woman in black with flowers at her breast appears in Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, a summer couple by a blue river in Argenteuil, and a woman reading beside a reclining man on the sand in On the Beach.
More famous Manet paintings, each painted to order, are gathered on our Édouard Manet page.
How do we hand-paint Chez Tortoni?
Manet’s original is a small oil on canvas, barely 34 cm wide. Ours is an oil painting reproduction on fresh canvas: the painter works it in oil on canvas, in the size you choose, layer upon layer.
Because the original is missing, he works from the surviving photograph: first the dark mass of hat and coat and the upturned face, then the pale window, the brown wall and the black strip, and last the collar, cuff, paper, pencil and the amber glow in the glass. Manet’s fast, broad brushwork stays visible, since that sketching hand is what gives the scene its passing moment.
Which size suits which wall?
In short: 40 x 30 and 45 x 35 cm for a shelf, a desk or a narrow wall, 50 x 40 and 60 x 45 cm for a hallway, a study or a bedroom, and 65 x 52 or 75 x 58 cm above a chest of drawers or a small sofa.
We paint it in 6 landscape sizes (width x height): 40 x 30, 45 x 35, 50 x 40, 60 x 45, 65 x 52 and 75 x 58 cm. The original measures only 34 x 26 cm (width x height), so all six are larger: 40 x 30 cm only slightly, 75 x 58 cm more than twice as wide.
We offer nothing bigger: the only photograph of the stolen original is small and would lose detail if enlarged. As a painting for the living room it works best at 65 x 52 or 75 x 58 cm.
Can I have another size or a frame?
Yes, within this range. For other proportions we keep the man, the table and the glass whole and adjust only the edge of the background. Send us the size you need, and you will hear back with a price and a date.
This café scene travels rolled, stretched on a stretcher bar or framed. Our workshop in Slovenia does the stretching and framing and packs each canvas with care.
You pick the moulding for the man in the top hat in our 3D app, which serves only that choice; seeing the painting on your own wall is a separate service. Slim black echoes the hat, warm gold the beer.
When will my painting arrive?
Once you confirm, the painter begins with the hat and the face, and the painting is ready to ship within 15 to 45 working days. Before packing we send you a photograph of the finished man at his table and make any changes you ask for.
Within Slovenia and to every other EU country we deliver without customs duties, and each order is covered by our returns policy.
The gentleman with hat and pencil suits a journalist, a writer or anyone fond of Paris cafés. Not sure of the wall? Then a wall art voucher lets the café lover choose the size.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original?
It hung in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston; it was stolen in 1990 and is still missing.
What is the man at the table doing?
He holds a pencil over a sheet of paper and looks up at the viewer for a moment.
Is this a print?
No. Each one is a hand-painted copy, worked with brushes in oil on canvas from the photograph of the original.
How big is the original?
Only 26 x 34 cm (height x width), so every one of our sizes is larger.
Why are there no larger sizes?
Because the only photograph of the stolen original is small; our largest size is 75 x 58 cm.
How long does it take to make?
Between 15 and 45 working days, with a photograph of the finished man at his table before he ships.
Is it a good gift, or right for a study?
Yes. The man with his pencil looks at home above a desk and pleases anyone who likes to write.
What does the title Chez Tortoni mean?
At Tortoni’s, after the Paris café of that name; Manet did not give the title, it was attached later.
- Subject: a gentleman in a top hat with a pencil at a café table, a glass of beer beside him, a pale window to the left.
- Original: oil on canvas, c. 1875, 26 x 34 cm; stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, still missing.
- Ours: an Édouard Manet reproduction painted by hand in oil on canvas, 6 sizes from 40 x 30 to 75 x 58 cm.
- Worth knowing: the title is not Manet’s, and the man has never been identified.
