A Woman Pouring Water

The Woman Pouring Water painting is a famous female hand painted portrait by Edouard Manet.

Edouard Manet painted this portrait while he was in France in 1858. It is a rectangular portrait with a dimension of 47 cm by 56 cm without a frame. This was an oil-on-canvas artwork, as with most of his back catalogue. The Woman pouring water painting is meant to resemble an old fashioned genre of a lady standing in front of a window, which represented Manet's future wife, Suzanne Leenhoff. The window painting is more like a painting than a real view. The woman in the painting, Suzanne Leenhoff, stands right in front of her canvas with both hands bent, her left hand diagonally above the right hand.

She uses her left hand to pour water into a bowl which she holds with her right hand. This is an iconic action with mystical and religious overtone. Edouard Manet places Suzanne's fingers in a position such that they make letter M. In addition, she has a gold ring on her finger. These two instances are always interpreted as a promise of future marriage to Suzanne Leenholf. The two got engaged to each other four years later. There is a taste of future and expectation content in Edouard Manet's painting in reference to the naming of the portrait and the main point of discussion.

Apparently, the background of the painting shows a calm whether and a flow of a river. The woman is also seemingly at peace and interestingly enough pouring some water. This shows Edouard's expectation of her future wife, a woman of calm appearance and with a flow in her heart of joy. The Woman Pouring Water painting among other arts by Manet are allegory of his creative moments.