Plum Brandy
oil-on-canvas painting by Édouard Manet
Plum Brandy, also known as The Plum (French: La Prune), is an oil painting by Édouard Manet. It is undated but thought to have been painted about 1877.
The painting measures 73.6 centimetres (29.0 in) by 50.2 centimetres (19.8 in). It depicts a woman seated alone at a table in a cafe, in a lethargic pose similar to that of the woman in Degas' L'Absinthe. The woman may be a prostitute, but unlike the subject of Degas' work she appears more dreamy than depressed. She holds an unlit cigarette and her plum soaked in brandy appears untouched.
Plum Brandy is exhibited in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Analysis
The painting is a study in loneliness, depicting a quiet, almost melancholy, scene of a young working girl seated in a café. The subject is viewed from nearby, perhaps by another seated customer. She may be a prostitute waiting for a client, or possibly a shop worker hoping for some conversation. On the table is a plum soaked in brandy, a speciality of Parisian cafés at the time (originally painted as a glass of beer), which gives the painting its title.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Plum Brandy” is oil-on-canvas painting by Édouard Manet. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Plum, Brandy and oil-on-canvas, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “oil-on-canvas painting by Édouard Manet” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q731639. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Plum Brandy”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Plum Brandy primary sources, Plum Brandy archive and Plum research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Plum Brandy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.