Woman Before a Mirror

A woman in a white corset stands with her back to us before a mirror, caught in a private moment of the toilette, her form rendered in swift, loose, almost unfinished strokes. Manet sketches rather than describes, letting bold dashes of paint suggest flesh, fabric, and the dim reflection. Now in the Guggenheim, Woman Before a Mirror is among his most freely painted works - a fleeting, intimate glimpse of modern Parisian life seized with dazzling economy, the brush moving so loosely that the picture seems to capture the very instant before the image settles.