Edouard Manet executed "Women at the Races" with extremely sketchy modeling and used large flat patches of color and bold silhouettes to create the effect of flickering sunlight and shadow.
This painting shows typical for Manet’s sharp, flâneur observation of the day-to-day life of Parisian society. The women are spectators at a horse race in the famous Bois de Boulogne, then outside Paris. Horseracing became very fashionable at the times among wealthy Parisians. The women wear plain, though luxurious, dresses and hold parasols to protect themselves from the sun. One looks towards the track while the other gazes off into the crowd.
This painting is a fragment of a larger painting Manet completed in 1864 of the horse races at Longchamp (near Paris). While the action of the race has been removed, the remaining portion conveys the true theme of the original painting: the fashionable sociability of modern life. Manet loved to observe the life of a vibrant French capital.