Raven's Head in Profile

Raven's Head in Profile — Édouard Manet. 1875.

Medium: lithograph. Dimensions: Image: 17 x 15.5 cm (6 11/16 x 6 1/8 in.); Sheet: 32.5 x 24.7 cm (12 13/16 x 9 3/4 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Edouard Manet created this lithograph for his friend Stephane Mallarmé’s 1875 French translation of American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Raven” (1845) about a man mourning his deceased love who is visited by a raven that repeatedly cries, “Nevermore.” Mallarmé’s edition is considered one of the first modern livres d’artistes—books created specifically as works of visual art. Manet created four full-page illustrations, including the scene in which the raven stares at the narrator from the top of the bust of the goddess Athena, and a raven head design used on the book’s cover and on its advertising poster.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.