Raven's Head in Profile

Series Title: Illustration for "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

1875

Édouard Manet

(French, 1832–1883)

Culture

France, 19th century

Medium

lithograph

Measurements

Image: 17 x 15.5 cm (6 11/16 x 6 1/8 in.); Sheet: 32.5 x 24.7 cm (12 13/16 x 9 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1923.215

Catalogue raisonné

Harris 83

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Location

Not on view

Description

Edouard Manet created this lithograph for his friend Stephane Mallarmé’s 1875 French translation of American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Raven” (1845) about a man mourning his deceased love who is visited by a raven that repeatedly cries, “Nevermore.” Mallarmé’s edition is considered one of the first modern livres d’artistes—books created specifically as works of visual art. Manet created four full-page illustrations, including the scene in which the raven stares at the narrator from the top of the bust of the goddess Athena, and a raven head design used on the book’s cover and on its advertising poster.