Édouard Manet

Pierre Berès, Paris
Private Collection, France

In very good condition. Executed on a fold sheet of paper. The work is hinge mounted on the upper corners. The artist's writing begins beneathe the plums and continues on the verso and can be seen on the front of the work. Minor studio stains. Hard horizontal crease through the center of the work. Watercolor is very slightly faded. In otherwise very good condition.
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In the summer of 1880 Manet rented a house in Bellevue, not far from Paris, and began work on a series of still life compositions. It was at this time that he began to illustrate letters to his friends with flowers and fruit, and his skill at rendering texture in oils was thus transformed by its translation into fresh and spontaneous watercolors. The resulting images of fruit appear to float upon the page, elegantly complementing the artist’s handwriting.

Manet frequently gave these still lifes to friends or to people he wished to impress. We do not know the identity of the recipient of this ornate letter but we can discern that he must have been a close confident and ally of the artist. The missive sees the painter in a defiantly playful mood, dismissing a prominent politician as “naïf” and “innocent” for failing to recognize his talent. Manet paraphrases the composer Hector Berlioz who famously described time as a “great master,” expressing a desire for the “Byzantine” politician in question to modernize his views and encourage the town to acquire one of his pictures:

 

Bellevue

My dear friend,

He is naive—the deputy for Doubs—alas I know very well that the Byzantines are not yet great admirers of Manet pictures and I asked this unworldly man to overtake “The Great Master, Time” and use his influence to persuade the town to purchase one of my paintings.

Well, I hope Senator Oudet will better understand my interests—they say he has great sympathy for the new school.

In friendship,

E. Manet