Luncheon in the Studio is an 1868 Realist Genre painting by leading French Impressionist artist Edouard Manet.
Luncheon in the Studio is enigmatic like many of Edouard Manet’s Genre paintings in the Realist style. The 16-year-old Léon Leenhoff, son of Suzanne Leenhoff who was to later marry Manet, stares out beyond us in the pose of a sitter for a portrait and is nattily dressed, complete with a straw hat.
Behind him, a female servant looks directly at us with a note of suspicion. To the right, a man sits smoking at the table which is furnished with a peeled lemon, a precariously balanced knife, and other assortments of the luncheon. To the left foreground, Manet has painted armor – a harkening back to the history of still life paraphernalia and perhaps a pledge to the protection of the youth.
Edouard Manet’s Luncheon in the Studio is in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Germany.