 This portrait of Zola is essentially a Japanese work, achieved with the aid of exotic props, and more signficantly, by its pictorial organization. The shallow space, silhouetted figured, and strong decorative elements of repeated flat shapes and rectangles parallel th the painting's edge.
It is also a statement of Manet's eclecticism: Japan and Spain appear together (represented by Kuniaki's Wrestler, above and Velazquez's Little Cavaliers), framed above the desk, and jioned by Manet's Olympia, itself a hybrid of old and new. The open book is Manet's copy of Blanc's Histoire des Peintures- a valuable source of older art for Manet.
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