weeks in May 1877 at Giroux, a merchant of bibelots on the boulevard des Capucines. The 69 painting was probably named after Emile Zola's fictional heroine of UAssommoir and Nana, Testing but whatever the precise relationship to Zola's Nana, Manet's was conceived in overtly Baude- the Limits lairean terms. She is a figure whose allure depends upon — is in fact identified with — her cos- tume. Baudelaire's thoughts were bread and butter to a woman like Nana: "She must paint herself up to be adored."44 In the painting, Nana gets ready to go out, while a gentleman in top hat waits off to one side, seated on a burgundy velvet settee. Only half of the seated man is in the picture, but this is 45 not a painting assembled with the goals of the "instantaneous glimpse picture" in mind. Not an evasive or elliptical picture, it is a deliberate synthesis of the look and period reputation of the courtesan, distilled in a unitary image in which the man plays a secondary, though still decisive, role. This is in many ways an odd picture for Manet to have painted. Among his works on the theme of the contemporary prostitute, Nana is unique, both aesthetically and ideologi- cally. Rehearsing the observation made at the outset of this chapter, the picture is probably the only straightforward glorification of a prostitute in the avant-garde record. Indeed, it appears that the theme of the hyperfashionable, immoral woman was never treated with reserve and evasiveness by visual artists of the 18705 and i88os. 46 Manet's art is filled with frontal female faces, but Nana's face is quite different from the others. Both its position and expression are distinctive. Although her body is in profile, her head turns between forty-five and ninety degrees from the plane of the body, and the face tilts slightly back from a strict vertical axis. Her head turning away from the plane of the body calls our attention to the discontinuity between what she is looking at now and what she has been doing. She addresses an outside spectator, aware that she is being admired. The diagonal placement of her head gives it a certain insouciance, but the facial features combine conventional flir- tatiousness with a somewhat patronizing and practiced flippancy. The slightly raised left eye- brow gives the face a note of alertness and sternness that stiffens its otherwise coquettish ex- pression. Nana's attractive features encourage attention, but all the while she professionally appraises the potential visitor. And at the same time, her body carries out the task of self-adorn- ment, uninterrupted. This complex relationship between body and countenance is a critical part of Manet's definition of Nana and her kind. Nana applies her makeup with the aid of a mirror, but unlike most women she is able to work on the project with both hands. Considering the customary limits of manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination, as well as plain efficiency, this two-handed technique is extraordinary. This pose is coupled with the theatrical exaggeration of her hands: the right hand holds a pow- der puff limply while the left hand, holding her lip rouge, includes a consciously chic extension of the little finger. These are not practical hand positions, and maintaining them while slie looks away accentuates their — and her — artificiality. Nana is defined quite precisely as some- one who applies makeup in her underwear not only while someone watches (the observer is the anonymous viewer of the painting, not her gentleman, for he is looking at her posterior), but in order to be watched.47 This is not just an image of narcissistic adornment practiced by a venal woman but, rather, the process of adornment on display. 48 The body — soft, curved, and plump — also fixes Nana's shamelessness. (A look of well- fed voluptuousness could at the time be as suggestive as expensive clothing.) The only exposed skin, her left arm, is made to appear as fleshy as possible: the bracelet pushes into her forearm, and her upper arm is splayed against her side. Manet has emphasized the breadth and softness