Lot 133
  • 133

Édouard Manet

Estimate
30,000 - 40,000 USD
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Description

  • Édouard Manet
  • Le Balcon
  • Signed E Manet by Mme. Édouard Manet (lower left)
  • Pen and ink and watercolor on paper
  • 5 5/8 by 3 1/2 in.
  • 14.2 by 8.9 cm

Provenance

Berthe Morisot, Paris (possibly)
Rouart Family Collection (by descent from the above)
Comtesse Greffuhle, Paris
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (by circa 1927-28)
L'Art Moderne, Paris
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (by 1928)
Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris (by 1935)
Camille Martin, Asnières
Sam Salz, New York
Acquired from the above in 1954

Exhibited

Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art & Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Édouard Manet, 1832-1883, 1966-67, no. 104, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais & New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manet 1832-1883, 1983, no. 116, illustrated in the catalogue
Martigny, Switzerland, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Manet, 1996, no. 26, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts (and travelling), Berthe Morisot, 2002, no. 160, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Literature

Théodore Duret, Histoire d'Édouard Manet et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1902, pp. 56-58
Antonin Proust, Édouard Manet: Souvenirs, Paris, 1913, p. 125
Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Manet raconté par lui-même, vol. I, Paris, 1926, pp. 102-08
Adolphe Tabarant, Manet: Histoire catalographique, Paris, 1931, no. 34a
Adolphe Tabarant, Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1947, no. 582, pp. 153-54
Denis Rouart (ed.), Correspondance de Berthe Morisot, Paris, 1950, pp. 25, 29-31, 35
George Heard Hamilton, Manet and His Critics, New Haven, 1954, pp. 129-40
Alain de Leiris, The Drawings of Édouard Manet, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1969, no. 233
Denis Rouart & Daniel Wildenstein, Édouard Manet, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Lausanne & Paris, 1975, no. 346, illustrated n.p.

Condition

Executed on cream colored laid paper. The sheet has been hinged to a mount at the top edge of its verso. The left edge has been cut. The sheet is a little time darkened and the extreme edges of the composition are mat stained due to contact with an acidic mounting board. Lighter areas at the top of the verso and bottom of the recto were protected from light exposure. Indistinct inscriptions and measurements are present in the bottom margin below the composition. There are two tiny repaired tears at upper and lower right edges of the verso. This work is in good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

The present work, Le balcon, is a study for Manet’s painting of the same title (see fig. 1), currently in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. While this celebrated masterwork did not cause quite the scandal at the 1869 Paris Salon that the artists’s Olympia had caused four years earlier, it was received in its own time as unharmonious and insufficiently idealized. Now it is celebrated as a clear and superb example of the influence Berthe Morisot and other Impressionists had upon the Manet's work. The bright colors and casual depictions of contemporary figures in natural settings are hallmarks of the Impressionist group. As in many of Manet's greatest works, the artist blurs the distinction between the illusionistic purposes of his technique and the pure visual delight of the medium, manipulated for the pleasure of the eye.

Royal Academy of Arts curator Mary Anne Stevens notes the artist’s particular approach to the subject: “Complexity and ambiguity begin to arise in Manet’s manipulation of genre painting with his use of models who are identifiable both through repeated use and through the absolute emphasis upon them as real individuals rather than the generalized types” (Manet: Portraying Life (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2013, p. 25). Accordingly, the subjects of the present work are all recognizable friends of the artist. Berthe Morisot stares into the distance in the foreground, her first time serving as a model for Manet. The woman on the left is renowned violinist Fanny Claus and the gentleman standing in the center is painter Antoine Guillernet. The young man just visible in the dark background is likely Manet’s wife’s son, Leon Leenhoff.

In his work Manet navigated along the treacherous precipice of a world on the edge of modernity. Visual reference to the Old Masters was still encouraged, while the new medium of photography served as both a replacement for and an aid to the portraitist. The present composition looks back to Goya’s Majas at the Balcony of circa 1810 (see fig. 2) but breaks with the academic convention in its lack of narrative. The figures represented do not interact but are attractively grouped in a sort of still life, three separate portraits on a single sheet. Manet employed both sketches and photographs as studies for his paintings, often working with each of his sitters individually. In the present work, a late study for the finished painting, the composition of the three central figures has been solidified but the layout remains in flux. The closed left shutter obscures the young man inside, along with many interior details that would be included the final work. Ultimately this study offers a fascinating window into the meticulous process the artist undertook to achieve his masterpiece, a step in the remarkable evolution of a complex composition.

Fig. 1 Édouard Manet, Le balcon, oil on canvas, 1868-69, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Fig. 2 Francisco de Goya, Majas at the Balcony, oil on canvas, circa 1810, Private Collection