Eduardo León Garrido | Belle Époque painter

Spanish painter Eduardo León Garrido (1856-1949), was a significant figure in the Impressionist movement.

Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, he later moved to Paris where he was influenced by French artistic trends, particularly the works of Manet and the Impressionists.

He is known for his elegant portraits and genre scenes, often bathed in soft, natural light.

Wisława Szymborska | La memoria / Memory finally

La memoria finalmente ha quel che cercava.

Si è trovata mia madre, mi è apparso mio padre.

Ho sognato per loro un tavolo, due sedie. Si sono seduti.

Erano miei di nuovo e per me di nuovo vivi.

Sono balenati con le due lampade sul viso

all'imbrunire, come a Rembrandt.

Victor Nizovtsev

The Tragic Life of Van Gogh by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam

Watch beauty directly;

See them through your soul’s door.

Don’t let technology snatch

the little time you have to relish real beauty.

Maybe this chance won’t repeat for us ever.

Know the value of encountering true beauties,

and don’t turn your back on them. | by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam.

Christopher Marlowe | Vieni a vivere con me e sii il mio amore / The passionate shepherd to his Love, 1599

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599), by Christopher Marlowe (English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era, 1564-1593), is a pastoral poem from the English Renaissance (1485–1603).

Marlowe composed the poem in iambic tetrameter (four feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable) in six stanzas, and each stanza is composed of two rhyming couplets; thus the first line of the poem reads: "Come live with me and be my love".

Come live with me, and be my love;

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountains yields.

Walter Crane | The Passionate Shepherd to his Love illustration

William Blake | A Poison Tree / Un albero avvelenato

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears:

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

William Blake | Songs of Experience: A Poison Tree, 1794 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antonia Pozzi | Ti do me stessa, 1934

Bellezza

Ti do me stessa,

le mie notti insonni,

i lunghi sorsi

di cielo e stelle - bevuti

sulle montagne,

la brezza dei mari percorsi

verso albe remote.

Harold Speed

Johannes Vermeer | View of Houses in Delft, 1658

View of Houses in Delft / Het Straatje, known as 'The Little Street' is an unusual painting in Vermeer’s oeuvre, and remarkable for its time as a portrait of ordinary houses.

The composition is as exciting as it is balanced.

The old walls with their bricks, whitewash, and cracks are almost tangible.

The location is Vlamingstraat 40-42 in Delft.

Vermeer’s aunt Ariaentgen Claes lived in the house at the right, with her children, from around 1645 until her death in 1670. | Source: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Sylvius D. Paoletti | Genre painter

Sylvius D. Paoletti (1864-1921) was born in Venice, where he worked all his life.

He is the son of the famous genre and landscape painter Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (1833-1912) and learned the art of painting in his father's workshop.

In his works Paoletti devoted himself mainly to serene genre scenes settled in Venice, in which he skillfully captures the southern light with bright and glowing colors.

Paoletti died in 1921.

Love Letters | Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet

Quando Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) incontra Louise Colet (1810-1876) aveva appena 24 anni. Lui aspirante scrittore e Lei, poetessa già affermata, più grande di lui di oltre dieci anni, sposata con il flautista Hippolyte Colet, amante del filosofo Victor Cousin, frequentatrice dei migliori salotti e spregiudicata.

Fu a Parigi, nell'atelier dello scultore Pradier, che il romanziere incontrò, nel giugno 1846, Louise mentre posava come modella.

Il giorno dopo Flaubert torna in atelier ed i giorni e le notti seguenti li passa con lei, in un vortice di passioni.

I due avranno una relazione molto coinvolgente, portata avanti fra contrasti dovuti in particolare al desiderio di indipendenza di Flaubert, che conduce una vita giovanile abbastanza libertina.

James Tissot | Young Lady in a Boat

Konstantinos Kavafis | Quanto più puoi / As much as you can / Όσο Mπορείς

Farla non puoi, la vita,

come vorresti? Almeno questo tenta

quanto più puoi: non la svilire troppo

nell’assiduo contatto della gente,

nell’assiduo gestire e nelle ciance.

René Magritte

Edgar Maxence | Il ritrattista romantico

Il pittore Francese Edgard Maxence (1871-1954) ha studiato con Jules-Élie Delaunay e Gustave Moreau.

I suoi contemporanei furono Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Albert Marquet, Henri Evenepoel ed altri.

La tecnica pittorica di Edgard Maxence combinava pennellate relativamente spesse con una certa purezza di linee.

Lui utilizzava la foglia d'oro, che enfatizzavano scene mistiche primitive, nonostante i volti realistici.

Robert Kemm | Admiring the painting, 1880

Robert Kemm (1837-1895) was a British painter.

He was considered a Romantic painter of genre scenes, especially Andalusia landscapes and figures.

This artwork called "Admiring the painting" was painted in oil and is a highly staged piece of work.

The room setting could easily be the artists studio, with the easel, palette and assortment of props.

Felix Nussbaum | The Folly Square / La piazza della follia, 1931

"The Folly Square" / "Der tolle Platz" was created in 1931 by German-Jewish surrealist painter Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944).

It is part of the collection of the Berlinische Galerie.

Turbulent goings - on at Pariser Platz in Berlin: young artists unload their paintings outside the Prussian Academy of the Arts while its distinguished professors file through the door.

In the background we see Max Liebermann, the president of the Academy, on the roof of his house right next to the Brandenburg Gate.

He is working on a self-portrait held for him by Victoria, the goddess of victory.

She has torn herself off the Victory Column on the right of the frame, but in mid-flight she loses the laurel wreath which, since Ancient times, has been the mark of distinction for success.

Felix Nussbaum | The folly square, 1931 | Berlinische Galerie

In the foreground, in the centre of the beige-grey painting: a group of young artists in pale smocks with paintings.

More paintings are being unloaded from a vehicle on the right.

Left: professors dressed in black form a long queue three abreast.

In the background, Max Liebermann stands on a half-crumbling building.

Rainer Maria Rilke | Lascia che tutto ti accada / Let everything happen to you

Dio parla a ciascuno solamente prima ch’egli sia creato,

poi va con lui silente nella notte.

Ma le parole, quelle prima dell’inizio di ciascuno,

le parole, come nubi, sono queste:

Sospinto dal tuo intendere,

va’ fino al limite del tuo anelare;

dai a me una veste.

Vladimir Volegov

Giovanni Segantini | Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi / Midday in the Alps, 1891

"I am now working passionately in order to wrest the secret of Nature’s spirit from her.

"Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens"

- Giovanni Segantini.

"Midday in the Alps" is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) executed in 1891.

It currently resides at the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871

"The Avenue, Sydenham" is an 1871 oil painting by a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

This work is a product of the Impressionism movement, measuring 48 x 73 cm.

It currently resides in the National Gallery in London, UK.

From The National Gallery, London: Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Camille Pissarro and his family left France and moved to London.

This picture is one of 12 he painted while in self-imposed exile there.

One of the largest paintings in the group, this springtime scene, with the trees just coming into leaf, would have been completed in April or May 1871, shortly before Pissarro’s return to France.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871 | National Gallery, London

Claude Monet | Le ninfee

Nel 1890 che Monet acquista la sua casa a Giverny ed un anno dopo realizza il suo bellissimo giardino fiorito, il Clos Normand, una vera e propria opera d’arte.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) descriveva cosi il giardino di Monet nel suo "Alla ricerca del tempo perduto":

« [...] giacché il colore che creava in sottofondo ai fiori era più prezioso, più commovente di quello stesso dei fiori; e sia che facesse scintillare sotto le ninfee, nel pomeriggio, il caleidoscopio di una felicità attenta, mobile e silenziosa, sia che si colmasse verso sera, come certi porti lontani, del rosa sognante del tramonto, cambiando di continuo per rimanere sempre in accordo, intorno alle corolle dalle tinte più stabili, con quel che c'è di più profondo, di più fuggevole, di più misterioso - con quel che c'è d'infinito - nell'ora, sembrava che li avesse fatti fiorire in pieno cielo».

Vincenzo Cabianca | Macchiaioli painter

Vincenzo Cabianca (1827-1902) was an Italian painter of the Macchiaioli group.

He was born in Verona in modest circumstances. He began his artistic training at the Verona Academy under Giovanni Caliari, and then studied at the Venice Academy from 1845-1847.

An admirer of Giuseppe Mazzini, he became associated with the Young Italy movement and was taken prisoner while participating in the defense of Bologna in 1848.

After his release he lived in Venice from 1849-1853.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897

"Spring in the Alps" was created in 1897 by Italian Divisionism / Symbolist painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899).

The painting is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

"Spring in the Alps" depicts a panoramic alpine landscape near the village of Soglio - visible on the right with its recognizable church tower - in Val Bregaglia in southwestern Switzerland.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897 | J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Claude Monet | Valley of the Petite Creuse, 1889

The striking effects of Monet’s several paintings of the Creuse Valley in central France are achieved through complex, superimposed layers of color, as he combined bold brushstrokes with intricate passages made up of many small touches.

Title: Valley of the Petite Creuse

Author: Claude Monet (French painter, 1840-1926)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 65.4 x 81.3 cm (25 3/4 x 32 in.)

Current location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Georges Girardot | Le reverences de la lune, 1890

Georges Marie Julien Girardot (1856-1914) was a French figure, landscape and marine painter.

Girardot was born in Besançon, Doubs on 4 August 1856.

He was trained by the artist Albert Maignan in Paris.

Girardot was active in Paris, painting mostly genre paintings, female nudes and landscapes.

William Bouguereau | Joueur de flûte, 1878

In his accounts, Bouguereau gave a title of Tête d’enfant avec une flûte to the present work, yet the instrument depicted more closely resembles a piffero, an Italian folk instrument related to the modern oboe, which was used by the musical troupes who would descend from the hills around Rome to celebrate Christmas.

Both the music and the sweet expression of Bouguereau’s young musician likely evoked the artist’s happy memories of travel to Italy in the late 1840s.

Bouguereau had painted young musicians as early as 1870 in works like Pifferaro (Bartoli, no. 1870/80, and sold in these rooms April 18, 2007, lot 90).

Ludovico Carracci | The penitent Saint Peter, 1613

Although mentioned by Ludovico's earliest biographer Malvasia as early as 1678, all trace of this monumental and imposing image of repentance was lost until its rediscovery only thirty years ago.

Malvasia recorded how Ludovico had given to Count Camillo Bolognetti, a nobleman and occasional amateur painter in the Carracci workshop, 'la figura intera di quel S. Pietro piangente, così risentito e terribile'.

In a handwritten note included in the 1841 edition of his Felsina pittrice the picture is referred to as 'San Pietro piangente l'aversi negato discepolo di Cristo, figura sedente, meno del naturale'.

Hermann Krüger | Park near Rome, 1899

"Park near Rome" (View of the Alban Hills) is an 1899 oil painting by German landscape painter of the Düsseldorf School Hermann August Krüger (1834-1908).

After initially studying art in Munich, Hermann Krüger continued his education in Düsseldorf from 1867 onwards, having spent time in Dresden and Berlin in between.

There, Kruger was a private pupil of Oswald Achenbach and undertook numerous study trips to Italy and Egypt.

James Tissot | Holiday, 1876

The autumn sun glows through the yellow leaves of the horse chestnut tree in this picnic scene.

The setting is the garden of James Tissot’s house in St John’s Wood, London, very close to Lord’s cricket ground.

Artist: James Tissot (1836-1902)

Medium: Oil paint on canvas

Dimensions support: 762 × 994 × 20 mm frame: 925 × 1185 × 95 mm

Collection: Tate

John Joseph Enneking | Spring Hillside, 1899-1902

John Joseph Enneking was born in Ohio in 1841 and was orphaned at a young age. He began to paint at the age of five and developed a natural talent before travelling East to New York and Massachusetts.

He trained in Germany, Italy and France and he was the first American to return from Paris in 1874 after having painted with Claude Monet, Pissarro and Renoir in Monet’s gardens at Argentueil (where Enneking painted Monet’s wife and child).

Jean-Baptiste Greuze | Le uova rotte, 1756

Anche se questo dipinto venne eseguito a Roma e presenta ambiente e costumi italiani, la fonte del soggetto ritratto è un quadro olandese del Seicento dell’artista Frans van Mieris il Vecchio (1635-1681), Le uova rotte (Museo dell’Ermitage, San Pietroburgo), che l'artista francese Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) conosceva attraverso un’ incisione.

Le uova rotte simboleggiano la perdita della verginità.

Il bambino che cerca di ricomporre le uova rappresenta l’ignara innocenza dell’infanzia.

Il quadro suscitò una reazione favorevole quando fu esibito al Salon di Parigi nel 1757. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Baptiste Greuze | Broken Eggs, 1756 (detail) | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Benjamin Osro Eggleston | Young Woman in a Theater Box, 1891

"Young Woman in a Theater Box" is an 1891 oil painting by Benjamin Osro Eggleston (1867-1937).

A landscape painter in the tonal style and figures, Benjamin Osro Eggleston was born in Belvidere, MN and studied art at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts under Douglas Volk.

He also traveled to Paris where he completed additional studies.

Upon his return he established a studio in Brooklyn from which he worked and traveled.

From 1900-1920 he summered at the Old Lyme Art Colony and in the 1930's he spent his time in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Howard Chandler Christy | The Christy Girl

Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952) was an American artist and illustrator.

Famous for the "Christy Girl" - a colorful and illustrious successor to the "Gibson Girl" - Christy is also widely known for his iconic WWI military recruitment and Liberty loan posters, along with his 1940 masterpiece titled, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, which is installed along the east stairwell of the United States Capitol.

Karol Bąk, 1961

Karol Bąk artista - pittore, illustratore e grafico. I suoi dipinti sono caratterizzati da illusione e surrealismo.

Si è diplomato alla Scuola Secondaria di Belle Arti di Poznań come espositore di interni.

Nel 1984 ha iniziato gli studi presso la Facoltà di Grafica della Scuola Superiore Statale di Belle Arti (ora Accademia di Belle Arti di Poznań).

Si è laureato con lode nel 1989 ottenendo due diplomi sia in grafica con il professor Tadeusz Jackowski, che in disegno con il professor Jarosław Kozłowski.

Jakub Schikaneder | The Kampa Lovers, 1894

"The Kampa Lovers" is an 1894 painting by the Czech painter and professor Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924).

Schikaneder is known for his soft paintings of the outdoors, often lonely in mood.

His paintings often feature poor and outcast figures and "combined neo-romantic and naturalist impulses".

Other motifs favoured by Schikaneder were autumn and winter, corners and alleyways in the city of Prague and the banks of the Vltava – often in the early evening light, or cloaked in mist.

Ralph Albert Blakelock | A Waterfall, Moonlight, 1886

This painting was shown at the National Academy of Design exhibition in 1886 and is a fine example of Blakelock's mature painting style.

Although it features elements that are typical of the artist's style -generalized and silhouetted forms, glowing moonlight, and thick paint- it is particularly strong and subtle in comparison.

The foliage that frames the edge of the canvas echoes the irregular contours of the tree so much that the forms seem almost able to interlock.

The brushwork is varied with pigment loosely appled to create a richly colored surface, especially in the boundary between the light sky and the dark leaves. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lionel Walden | Breaking Waves

Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was an American painter active in Hawaii, Cornwall and France.

He was born in Norwich, Connecticut.

He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there.

Penleigh Boyd | Silver Light, Hawkesbury River, 1922

During his lifetime, and in the decades following his premature death at the age of thirty-three, Australian artist Penleigh Boyd (1890-1923) received the greatest recognition for his evocative depictions of the Australian landscape shown under heightened atmospheric conditions.

Boyd’s life and art was inextricably connected to the First World War.

Serving with the Australian Imperial Forces in France, he was badly gassed at Ypres in September 1917, and convalesced in England, before returning home to Melbourne in March 1918.

Penleigh Boyd | Silver Light, Hawkesbury River, 1922 | Smith and Singer

Claude Monet | The Manneporte (Etretat), 1883

Monet spent most of February 1883 at Étretat, a fishing village and resort on the Normandy coast.

He painted twenty views of the beach and the three extraordinary rock formations in the area: the Porte d'Aval, the Porte d'Amont, and the Manneporte.

The sunlight that strikes the Manneporte has a dematerializing effect that permitted the artist to interpret the cliff almost exclusively in terms of color and luminosity.

Claude Monet | The Manneporte (Etretat), 1883 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Boating on the River Epte, 1890

Boating on the River Epte (also known as The Canoe on the Epte) is an 1890 oil painting by French impressionist artist Claude Monet.

It is currently housed at the São Paulo Museum of Art.

Between 1887 and 1890 Monet concerned himself with portraying scenes from the River Epte, which skirted his property at Giverny.

The sisters Suzanne and Blanche Hoschedé posed for this series of pictures, their late father being banker Ernest Hoschedé, a patron of the arts and collector of Monet, and their mother, Alice, who became Monet's second wife.

Claude Monet | Boating on the River Epte, 1890 | São Paulo Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Camille Monet à la fenêtre, 1873

In 1871, Monet took up residence in the Maison Aubry on rue Pierre Guienne in Argenteuil.

It was situated down the street from the train station, making it possible for the artist to commute to his Paris studio and return home in the evening.

Although Maison Aubry served as a frequent meeting place for Impressionist painters as well as collectors, writers, and journalists, this painting provides a rare glimpse into the interior of the Monets’ home.

Claude Monet | Camille Monet à la fenêtre, 1873 | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Claude Monet | The Stroller (Suzanne Hoschede), 1887

This painting of Suzanne Hoschedé in the meadows just south of Le Pressoir, Monet's home at Giverny, was probably made in the summer of 1887.

She became Monet's preferred model in the period after the death of his first wife, Camille, in 1879, and before 1890, when he gave up plein-air figure painting.

The model was the daughter of Alice Hoschedé, whom Monet married in 1892. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Odilon Redon Quotes: "Black is the most essential of all colors"

• "The artist lives only day by day, and is the recipient of the things that surround him; he transposes sensations from outside, according to what the fate reserves him, but transforms them relentlessly and tenaciously, in a manner determined by him alone".

Odilon Redon | Melancholy, 1876 | The Art Institute of Chicago

• "L'artista vive solo giorno per giorno, ed è destinatario delle cose che lo circondano; traspone le sensazioni dall'esterno, secondo ciò che il destino gli riserva, ma le trasforma senza sosta e tenacemente, in un modo determinato da lui solo".

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Hushing (Calm Before the Storm), 1890

Isaac Levitan: "Not everyone can convey such a capture from nature itself, like "Calm before the storm", where you feel not the author, but the elements themselves".

The painting Притихло" ("hushing" or "silencing", before the storm) display at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, is a masterpiece of Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy / Николай Никанорович Дубовской (1859-1918), a Russian landscape painter, associated with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants) - group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.

The artist's most famous and landmark painting, which placed his name among the most famous Russian landscape painters.

It marked the beginning of the "Landscape of Mood" genre, developed by Nikolay Dubovskoy and Isaac Levitan.

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Calm Before the Storm, 1890 | State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Louis Rolland Trinquesse | After the Soirée, 1774

Louis Rolland Trinquesse (1746-1800) was a French Rococo painter.

He was a student at the Académie Royale from 1758 to at least 1770 and worked both as a portrait painter and a Genre painter.

His portraits are usually gentle and uncomplicated likenesses painted in pastel colours, for example the Young Girl (1777; Paris, Louvre).

Adolph von Menzel | Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim in Concert, 1854

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (1815-1905) was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings.

Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany.

First known as Adolph Menzel, he was knighted in 1898 and changed his name to Adolph von Menzel.

Alphonse Spring | Violin Player, 1890

Alphons Spring (1843-1908) was a genre painter of the Munich School and co-founder of the artists' society Allotria in Munich.

Alphons Spring, who wrote himself Alfons Spring from around 1878, was born in Liepaja in Latvia and studied at the art school and academy in Saint Petersburg.

He moved to Munich 1870 where he became a student of Professor Wilhelm Diez.

Constance Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801

Constance Marie Charpentier (1767-1849) was a French painter.

She specialized in genre scenes and portraits, mainly of children and women.

She was also known as Constance Marie Bondelu.

Constance-Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801 | Musée de Picardie, Amiens

Edgar Degas | Combing the Hair, 1896

Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work - for example, in his early Beach Scene, also in the National Gallery.

This late painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject.

Here, a maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed and who may also be pregnant.

Edgar Degas | Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas, 1872

Edgar Degas arrived in New Orleans in 1872 for an extended stay, two years after he had enlisted in the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War, and two years before he would join a group of painters back in Paris for the first of what would become known as the Impressionist Exhibitions.

It was a pivotal time in his career, one that brought to the fore many important familial, artistic, and personal connections.

Claude Monet | The Japanese Bridge, 1900

In 1883, Claude Monet moved to Giverny, about forty miles northwest of Paris.

For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to painting and tending his gardens, which included the Japanese footbridge in this picture.

His style became more expressive as he piled thick pigments layer upon layer in ever more intense colors that often didn’t correspond to reality (possibly because his eyesight was failing).

Giving up any desire to record minute details, he wove tangled skeins of paint with bold strokes, seeming more concerned with nature’s mysteries than with mere appearance.

Joseph Wright of Derby | A view of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples

From: Art Gallery of South Australia

Joseph Wright (1734-1797) began his career as one of Britain foremost portrait painters, but, following a visit to Italy between 1773 and 1775, he turned his gaze to landscape painting, becoming recognised for his deep understanding and exploration of light.

Wright visited the Bay of Naples in 1774, finding its awe-inspiring view of Mount Vesuvius particularly moving.

Édouard Manet | Young Lady in 1866, 1866

Manet’s model, Victorine Meurent, had recently posed as the brazen nudes in Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass (both Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

Here, appearing relatively demure, she flaunts an intimate silk dressing gown.

Critics eyed the painting as a rejoinder to Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot and as indicative of Manet’s "current vice" of failing to "value a head more than a slipper".

Carolus-Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880

Carolus-Duran (1837-1917), a successful society portraitist, painted this informal view of his friend Édouard Manet (1832-1883) at a villa outside of Paris.

Manet was known for his impeccable grooming, but Carolus-Duran portrays him in a moment of ease, flushed by the effects of a warm afternoon, wearing a straw boater pushed back on his forehead.

Carolus Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880 | Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Working quickly, he captures Manet’s appearance and mood with broad, summary strokes, painting him “à la Manet”-employing his friend’s loose brushwork rather than his own tighter style. | Source: © RISD Museum of Art