Location📍 National Gallery of Art → Not on view

The Railway

Edouard Manet’s horizontal painting, The Railway, presents an intriguing study in contrasts and ambiguity through the relationship of its two subjects. On the left, a woman sits on a low stone wall facing the viewer; she has long auburn hair, wears a navy-blue dress with white piping, and sports a black hat adorned with two red poppies and a daisy. She holds an open book, a closed red fan, and a sleeping brown and white puppy in her lap, looking directly at the viewer with dark eyes. To the right, a young girl with blond hair tied in a black ribbon stands with her back to the viewer, wearing a white, knee-length sleeveless dress with a marine-blue sash tied in a large bow. She reaches out with her left hand to grasp a bar of the iron fence, gazing at the steam billowing up from the tracks. Beyond the fence, which extends across the entire width of the painting, lies a stone-gray building with wooden doors and a bridge.