Édouard Manet - Chez Tortoni, about 1875

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This small rectangular oil painting depicts a light-skinned young man with brown hair and a light, curly mustache  sitting next to a window. The man is wearing a top hat and a dark coat with just the edge of a white collar and cuffs visible. He has a pencil in his right hand and both hands are poised above a sketch pad on the table. He has stopped sketching to look out at the viewer. Light coming in from the window to the viewer's left highlights the right side of his face. A half-full glass of wine is on the table to the viewer's left.

Édouard Manet (Paris, 1832 - 1883, Paris)

Chez Tortoni, about 1875

Oil on canvas, 26 x 34 cm (10 1/4 x 13 3/8 in.)

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Commentary

Isabella Stewart Gardner Gardner installed Chez Tortoni, a small painting of a sophisticated gentleman sitting in a popular Parisian café by the French artist Édouard Manet, below the portrait of the artist’s mother that she had acquired more than a decade earlier. While Gardner never met Manet, his painterly style and love of Spanish old master painters made his work a good fit for her collection. 

On the night of the theft in 1990, the larger portrait had been removed for cleaning, and only the smaller Manet was on view. Purchased in 1922, two years before Gardner died, Chez Tortoni was the only work stolen from the first floor. Adding insult to injury, the thieves left the frame in the office of the Museum’s security director at the time.

The Museum is offering a reward of $10 million for information leading directly to the recovery of all 13 works in good condition. Anyone with information about the theft or location of the stolen artworks should contact the Museum at 617-278-5114 or theft@gardnermuseum.org. Confidentiality and anonymity are assured.