The Spanish Ballet reflects the fascination with Spanish art and culture manifest in Édouard Manet’s work in the late 1850s and throughout the 1860s. His exploration of these romantic stereotypes reflected the exotic allure of all things Spanish that had been popular in France as far back as the 1830s. In 1862 Manet fell under the spell of a troupe of Spanish dancers from the Royal Theater of Madrid, headed by the veteran and principal dancer Don Mariano Camprubi, who had first excited Paris audiences in 1834 dancing the Bolero. During that period Manet arranged for several of the principal dancers in the troupe to pose for him at the studio of his friend Alfred Stevens. Several paintings of Spanish themes and entertainers stem from this arrangement, including this painting that shows the principal dancers of the Royal Theater of Madrid on stage, as if in a performance.
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