Apartment · Quartier de l'Europe (8th) · 8e arrondissement

39 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg

The buildingStill standing

Getting inOutside only

What's there nowSomeone else

Private, and unmarked.

The apartment Édouard Manet moved to in 1878 and remained associated with until his death in 1883, in the last years when illness had reduced what he could physically paint.

Address: 39 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, 75008 Paris
Years: Manet's address from 1878 until his death in 1883

The place, briefly

Édouard Manet took an apartment here in 1878, a few doors along the same street from the studio he had just given up, and the address stayed his until he died in 1883.

These were hard years. Manet was seriously ill — the illness is generally identified as locomotor ataxia arising from syphilis — and walking, standing and working all became progressively harder. The work adapted rather than stopped: the late still lifes of fruit and flowers, small and close at hand, come from a painter who could no longer stand at a large canvas for long.

The last major picture, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, was shown at the Salon in 1882. Manet died on 30 April 1883, aged fifty-one, and is buried in the family tomb at Passy Cemetery.

Key facts

Manet lived here: 1878 until his death in 1883
Health: Severely ill in these years; mobility increasingly limited
Late work: The small still lifes, and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Salon of 1882)
Died: 30 April 1883, aged fifty-one
Access: Private building — exterior only

Timeline

1878
Manet moves into 39 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg.
1882
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is shown at the Salon.
1883
Manet dies on 30 April and is buried at Passy Cemetery.

On the map

Questions before you go

Where did Manet live at the end of his life?

At 39 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg in the 8th arrondissement, from 1878 until his death on 30 April 1883.

Why are Manet's late paintings so small?

Illness. In his last years he could not stand at a large canvas for long, and the late work concentrates on small, close subjects — particularly still lifes of fruit and flowers.

People who knew this place

Édouard Manet

French · Painter

Manet moved to an apartment at 39 rue de Saint-Petersbourg in 1878 and remained associated with the address until his death in 1883.

Within walking distance

Square · Clichy — Montmartre's edge

Place de Clichy

The crossroads where four arrondissements collide — and where Louis-Ferdinand Céline opens Journey to the End of the Night at a café table, with a recruitment parade passing and his narrator Bardamu jumping up to join the war.

Visit the place

Restaurant · Place de Clichy

Brasserie Wepler

The big brasserie on the place de Clichy that Henry Miller used as his base during the Clichy years later recreated in Quiet Days in Clichy — somewhere to write, to wait for people, and to watch the square. Currently closed for renovation.

Visit the place

Café · Batignolles (17th)

Café Guerbois

The Batignolles café where Édouard Manet held court through the 1860s and the painters who would become the Impressionists argued out what they were doing. Its address has since been renamed and renumbered, and nothing of it survives.

Visit the place

Apartment · Quartier de l'Europe (8th)

4 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg

Manet's studio through the 1870s, whose windows looked down on what was then the rue Mosnier — the street he painted repeatedly, flags and all, in the summer of 1878.

Visit the place

The Friday Letter

Paris, one address at a time.

The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.