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Edouard
Manet, Masked Ball at the Opera, 1873.
Despite a confusing record of acceptances and refusals by the art establishment, in the early 1870s Manet was both an object of grudging admiration and a jolt to conservative sensibilities. Of four works he submitted to the Salon of 1874, two were rejected, including Masked Ball at the Opera.
Its crush of figures, some with their legs dangling from the balcony or bisected by the edge of the canvas, elicits the flirtatious melee of Parisian night life.
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