The setting is a conservatory at 70 Rue d'Amsterdam in Paris, then owned by painter Georg von Rosen and which Manet used as a studio for nine months in 1878 and 1879.

Their physical separation—with the husband Jules slouching in dark clothing behind the bench—their lack of engagement with the viewer, and their abstract gazes create a sense of detachment, which has been the primary theme in modern criticism of the work.

[4] As Collins summarizes: John Richardson, for example, called the figures 'stiff,' whereas the critic Castagnary, a contemporary of Manet's, wrote that 'nothing [could be] more natural than the attitudes.'

[1] Manet's Chez le Père Lathuille (see Gallery), having similar subjects and painted later in the same year, may be seen as a companion to In the Conservatory.

[7] In 1945 by the end of the Second World War In the Conservatory was among the objects evacuated from the German National Gallery and the Berlin State Museums and put for safekeeping in a mine in Merkers.

These photographs have gained iconographic status over the years and are often falsely[8] used as an illustration of Nazi looted art in prestigious publications like the Deutsche Welle,[9] The Washington Post,[10] The New York Times[11] and even in academic papers.