Fourth illustration by édouard manet for a french translation by stéphane mallarmé of edgar allan poe's "the raven". Other sources include: the bridgeman art library and the national gallery of australia both show it in its expected orientation, the source of this file shows it as upside down. Manet's silence and the poetics of bouquets, by james henry rubin, says "in the fourth plate, shadow has itself taken on life, becoming the most prominent form. At its bottom it resembles that cast by the bird perched upon the bust, but then in much freer strokes it becomes a dense vapour rising and trailing into oblivion. " at this period, plates were usually printed separately from the text, and inserted afterwards, so it's not impossible that a single copy might have a plate misplaced or upside-down, and as no reliable source comments on any unusual orientation, it seems likely, barring actual evidence to the contrary, that the upside-down orientation was a printing error confined to the primary source of this file and, perhaps, this copy (no. 29) of limited run. The original restoration was tightly-cropped. As impressionism tends to make use of empty spaces, this version has cloned in some more paper at the top. This is not really ideal, but redoing a significant part of the restoration would be needed to do it more properly. Date: 1875.
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