'Dandyism is the last spark of heroism amid decadence... a sunset.'
Charles Baudelaire

By the 1860s the image of the bohemian was so prevalent that artists who challenged bourgeois taste were often assumed to be bohemians. When Fantin-Latour's portrait of Manet was shown at the 1867 Salon, critics were astonished to find that the artist had 'such a gentlemanly appearance'.

Like most artists of the period, Manet came from a middle-class family, and in his appearance and behaviour epitomised the artist 'flâneur', as described by his friend Baudelaire in his seminal essay 'The Painter of Modern Life'. The flâneur, or man-about-town, could mingle with the fashionable crowd, observing modern life without himself being observed. To the bourgeois he posed the same threat as a spy or fifth columnist.

In 'Music in the Tuileries Gardens', Manet included portraits of himself and Baudelaire among the fashionable concert-goers: Baudelaire can be seen turning away just behind the blue bonnet of the lady on the left, while Manet stands at the extreme left. Inconspicuous and anonymous, the artist is at once part of the crowd and detached from it.

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