His works as a young artist centered on still life and the human figure, which he rendered in a realist style not unlike the work of Édouard Manet. This was supported by the fact that Weir purchased two paintings by Manet during the summers of 1880 and 1881, "Woman with a Parrot" and "Boy with a Sword", for the New York collector Erwin Davis. It was clear by then that Weir was beginning to lose his previous staunch loathing for French Impressionism.