In this picture, Manet presents the uniformed boy, in a manner that imitates and inverts the formula of Vélazquez's court portraits, against a barely inflected, flattened background of neutral tone, thus frustrating attempts to assess the figure's true size and, by extension, importance.

Following the example of Gustave Courbet, in May 1867, Manet personally funded and mounted an exhibition of his own work in a pavilion at the edge of the Éxposition universelle.

Le fifre was accepted by the French government in lieu of taxes on the estate of its last private owner, the Count Isaac de Camondo, and entered the national collections in 1911.

[2] According to Peter H. Feist, in The Player fife, Manet showed the appeal of "the decorative effect of a large single figure, with emphatic contours and placed before a background surface.

"[3] Against a monochrome background, the figure is boldly highlighted with a reduced palette of colors mostly laid on in a thick impasto which brings forth the very sharp black of the jacket and shoes, along with the red pants, white strap, spats and so on.