Eugène Manet, the painter's younger brother, married Berthe Morisot in November, 1874. Degas was typically very shy around women for whom he felt affection, and we do not know how he took the news when Morisot, in whom he had been interested romantically (see lot 305), accepted Manet's proposal. In early 1874 Degas began work on a portrait of Eugène Manet seated in an open field. Degas finished the painting in Morisot's studio during the couple's engagement and presented it to them as a wedding gift (Lemoisne, vol. II, no. 339; sale, Christie's New York, May 19, 1981, lot 308). Degas later wrote to Morisot and received her permission to include the painting in the Second Impressionist Exhibition, 1876.

Lemoisne did not recognize the resemblance of the subject of the present work to Eugène Manet and simply titled it Portrait d'homme, ascribing to it a date of 1865-1870. It is clear, however, that the sitters in the outdoor portrait and this oil study are identical: the beards are neatly trimmed in the same manner, the subjects wear the same hat, and even when observed from different angles the shape of Manet's finely-formed nose is consistent. When Mme Ernest Rouart, the daughter of Manet and Morisot, was shown a photograph of this study and asked if it represented her late father, she replied, "...Yes. I remember my father very well."