Friday 24 April 2015

Édouard Manet - part 2

Edgar Degas 1864-65 Edouard Manet, Bust-Length Portrait 
etching, drypoint, and aquatint on laid paper 13 x 10.5 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Édouard Manet (1832 – 1883) was a French painter. He was one of the first 19th century artists to paint modern life, and was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His early masterworks “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” (The luncheon on the Grass) and “Olympia”, both painted in 1863, caused great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art.


This is part 2 of a 9 – part post on the works of Édouard Manet. For full biographical notes, and for earlier works, see part 1 also.




1862 The Balloon
 lithograph in black on laid paper 40.3 x 50.8 cm ( image ) 
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1862 The Gypsies 
etching on blue laid paper 30.5 x 23.8 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1862 The Old Musician 
oil on canvas 187.4 x 248.2 cm 
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1862 The Toilette 
etching in black on ivory laid China paper 28.5 x 22.2 cm 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1862 Young Woman Reclining 
oil on canvas 93.98 x 113 cm 
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

1862-63 Don Mariano Camprubi 
etching on blue laid paper from 1905 Strölin edition 29.8 x 19.7 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1862-63c Fishing 
oil on canvas 76.8 x 123.2 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1862-64 Silentium 
etching on blue laid paper from 1905 Strölin edition 20.3 x 15.1 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


1862-64 The Infanta Marguerita after Velázquez ( see below ) 
etching on blue laid paper from 1905 Strölin edition 23.2 x 20.2 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Velazquez 1654-55 Infanta Margarita 
oil on canvas 70 x 59 cm 
Musée du Louvre, Paris


1862-72c Boy with Pitcher 
oil on canvas 61.8 x 54.3 cm 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1862c Gypsy with a Cigarette 
oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm  
The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey

1862c Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining ( Lady with a Fan ) 
90 x 113 cm 
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary


1862c Street Singer
Manet was inspired by the sight of a woman with a guitar emerging from a sleazy café. She refused to pose for the picture, so Manet employed his favourite model of the 1860s, Victorine Meurent.

No one embodied this new aesthetic better than Victorine Meurent – Manet was to paint her nine times in total, producing two pictures in particular that would shake up the art world forever. The story goes that Manet spotted the 18 year old musician hurrying through the streets and decided she would be the ideal subject to illustrate his new way of seeing the world.

The second time Victorine sat for Manet, something remarkable happened. In Victorine Meurent (c1862) Manet grants her all the attention that a more conventional painter might lavish on a society beauty. She is no longer a generic, anonymous ‘street singer’ but is afforded the honour of being named.

It was though, Manet’s next painting that projected Victorine into the middle of a public scandal. Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) famously shows three people lounging on the grass following what looks like an excellent picnic of fruit and oysters. In many ways it is a typical tableau – except for the fact that although the young men are fully clothed, their female companion is completely naked.

If Le déjeuner sur l’herbe hinted at sexual activity, Olympia (1863) left nothing to the imagination. In it, she appears as a courtesan lying on a rumpled post-coital bed. Leaning towards her is a black maidservant carrying a bouquet that has arrived from a smitten admirer.


Victorine Meurent was to feature in several more paintings by Manet.

1862c Street Singer 
oil on canvas 171.1 x 105.8 cm 
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1862c Victorine Meurent 
oil on canvas 43 x 44 cm 
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Victorine Meurent, c. 1865 from an album of portraits belonging to Édouard Manet

1862c Study of a Seated Nude ( La Toilette ) 
red chalk on buff laid paper 28 x 20 cm 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1863 Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ( Luncheon on the Grass ) 
oil on canvas 208 x 264.5 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris 
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay

1863 Lola de Valence 
etching and aquatint on laid paper 26.4 x 18.1 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1863 Lola de Valence 
lithograph in black on light grey wove paper 24.1 x 21.2 cm ( image ) 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1863 Olympia
Manet stated that the composition and inspiration for Olympia had been influenced by similar compositions by Goya and by Titian:

1863 Olympia 
oil on canvas 130 x 190 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris 
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay )

Titian 1538 Venus of Urbino 
oil on canvas 119.2 x 165.5 cm 
Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Francisco de Goya 1797-1800 Maja desnuda 
oil on canvas 97 x 190 cm 
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1867 Olympia ( large plate ) 
etching on blue laid paper from the 1905 Strölin edition 16.8 x 24 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1867 Olympia ( small plate ) 
etching in brown ink on laid paper 8.8 x 17.9 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1864 1864 The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne 
ink wash and watercolour on wove paper 24.6 x 35.6 cm 
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon

1864 The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne 
oil on canvas 81.6 x 100 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1864 Battle of the U.S.S. 'Kearsarge' and the C.S.S. 'Alabama' 
oil on canvas 134 x 127 cm 
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1864 Steamboat Leaving Boulogne 
oil on canvas 73.6 x 92.6 cm 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1864-68c Sailing Ships and Seagulls 
oil on canvas 21 x 26 cm 
Private Collection

1864 Eel and Red Mullet 
oil on canvas  
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1864 Fish ( Still Life ) 
oil on canvas 73.4 x 92.1 cm 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1864 Fruit on a Table 
oil on canvas 45.1 x 73.3 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1864 Peony Stems and Pruning Shears 
oil on canvas 56.8 x 46.4 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1864 Still Life: Fruits on a Table 
oil on canvas 45 x 73.5 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1864 The Dead Christ with Angels 
oil on canvas 179.4 x 149.9 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1866-67 Dead Christ with Angels 
etching and aquatint in brown-black ink on wove paper 39.4 x 32.7 cm ( plate ) 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1864 The Races at Longchamp 
oil on canvas 
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1865-72 published 1884 The Races 
lithograph on chine collé 38.7 x 51.1 cm 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1864 Vase of Peonies on a Small Pedestal 
oil on canvas 93 x 70 cm 
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1864-65 Peonies 
oil on canvas 59.4 x 35.2 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1864-65 La Corrida 
48 x 108 cm 
The Frick Collection, New York

1864-65c The Head of Christ 
oil on canvas 
California Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco


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