Letter Decorated with a Snail on a Leaf

Édouard Manet

Watercolor over gray wash (design); pen and ink (text) on machine-made laid paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This intimate work by Édouard Manet depicts a life-sized, bright yellow snail perched on a fallen leaf, rendered in fresh greens and yellows over a delicate gray wash, alongside a brief handwritten note in pen and ink addressed to an unnamed female correspondent from Bellevue. The sheet was neatly folded and sent as an actual letter, making it a rare fusion of personal correspondence and pictorial art. Manet produced this work during the summer and fall of 1880, when he was convalescing at Bellevue, near Meudon west of Paris, his mobility severely limited by the advancing effects of tertiary syphilis. The illustrated letters of this period — among the most intimate works he ever produced — showcase his mastery of watercolor with an economy of means and graphic virtuosity that scholars have long celebrated.