The Judgment of Paris (78 page)

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35
This work, the Tyler Davidson Fountain, was completed in 1871 and now stands in Fountain Square (formerly Probasco Square) in downtown Cincinnati.
36
For Probasco's bid of 150,000 dollars, see Mollett,
Meissonier,
p. 56. Writing in 1882, fifteen years after the fact, Mollett identifies the work in question not specifically as
Friedland
—discussed elsewhere in his text—but as "Cavalry Charge," which he claims Probasco successfully acquired in 1867. However, there is no record (e. g., in Gréard) of Meissonier ever having painted a work named "Cavalry Charge." The Probasco collection was dispersed in 1887, and I have been unable to determine the identity of this painting—if, indeed, it ever existed. I suspect that Probasco's bid—ultimately unsuccessful—was actually for
Friedland,
the only painting for which Meissonier expected compensation of more than 100,000 francs.
Friedland
was sometimes known by varying names, including "Cavalry Charge." For example, Théodore Duret (writing in 1906) called it "Charge des cuirassiers"
{Histoire de Édouard Manet et de son oeuvre,
p. 124).
Chapter Twenty-two: Funeral for a Friend
1
Quoted in Ridley,
Napoléon III and Eugénie,
p. 532.
2
Quoted in ibid., p. 526.
3
L'Indipéndance beige,
July 6, 1867.
4
Courthion and Cailler,
Portrait of Manet,
p. 40.
5
This visit is confirmed in Wilson-Bareau and Degener, eds.,
Manet and the Sea,
p. 258.
6
Correspondance de Baudelaire,
vol. 2, p. 253.
7
Ibid., p. 460.
8
For a discussion of this painting and its relation to Paris's topography and monuments, see Nancy Locke, "Unfinished Homage: Manet's Burial and Baudelaire,"
The Art Bulletin
(March 2000), pp. 68-82.
9
Quoted in McMullen,
Degas,
p. 119.
10
Plateau would publish his study in 1873. For a discussion of the surprisingly long and important scientific history of soap bubbles, see Michele Emmer, "Architecture and Mathematics: Soap Bubbles and Soap Films," in
Nexus: Architecture and Mathematics,
ed. Kim Williams (Florence: Edizioni dell'Erba, 1996), pp. 53—65.
11
This account seems to have originated with Manet's friend Théodore Duret: see
Histoire de Édouard Manet et de son oeuvre,
p. 115. However, Juliet Wilson-Bareau argues that this story "may have been a picturesque invention of the kind often used to catch the imagination of the public and enhance the 'veracity' of a history painting": see "Manet and
The Execution of Maximilian,"
in Wilson-Bareau et al.,
Manet: "The Execution of Maximilian": Painting, Politics, Censorship
(London: National Gallery Publications, 1992), p. 55.
12
Wilson-Bareau, "Manet and
The Execution of Maximilian,"
p. 55.
13
Ibid., p. 52.
14
See Henri Loyrette's review, in the September 1992
Burlington Magazine,
of a 1992 exhibition at the National Gallery, London, entitled
Manet: The Execution of Maximilian.
Loyrette makes the case that Manet's "clear and straightforward purpose was to denounce the French attitude to the incident" (p. 613).
Chapter Twenty-three: Maneuvers
1
Gréard,
Meissonier,
p. 185. For Colonel Dupressoir ordering his cuirassiers to perform maneuvers for Meissonier, see Yriarte, "E. Meissonier," p. 835.
2
Yriarte, "E. Meissonier," p. 835.
3
Quoted in Hungerford,
Ernest Meissonier,
p. 166.
4
"E. Meissonier," p. 835.
5
Ibid.
6
Wolff,
La Capitale de Fart
(Paris, 1886), p. 181.
7
For a description of this work, see Gréard,
Meissonier,
p. 378. For the price paid by Delahante, see Hungerford,
Ernest Meissonier,
p. 259, note II.
8
For the price of
Friedland,
see the report in
Paris-Artiste,
January 25, 1872, cited in Hungerford,
Ernest Meissonier,
p. 160. Hungerford states that Meissonier agreed to sell
Friedland to
Lord Hertford sometime around 1867 (ibid.)—that is, at the time of the Universal Exposition or shortly thereafter.
9
The author of the article in
Le Moniteur
was no less an authority than Napoléon Bonaparte: see D. M. Tugan-Baranovsky, "Napoléon as Journalist," in
Napoleonic Scholarship: The Journal of the International Napoleonic Society
1 (December 1998), online at
www.napoleonicsociety.com.
10
Blanc,
Les Artistes de mon temps,
p. 321.
11
Revue du XIX
e
Siècle,
June 1866.
12
Quoted in Philip Nord,
Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century
(London and New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 48.
13
Quoted in Roos,
Early Impressionism and the French State,
p. 103. For these activities of Courbet et al., see ibid., pp. 103-4, and Mainardi,
Art and Politics of the Second Empire,
pp. 187-8.
14
Thirésè Raquin,
trans. Andrew Rothwell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 28.
15
Ibid., p. 62.
16
Quoted in Brown,
Zola,
p. 156.
17
Le Figaro,
January 23, 1868. Since the author of the review has been identified as Zola's friend Louis Ulbach, it has been suggested that Zola, hoping to enhance his notoriety, was himself directly responsible for this campaign against "putrid literature." Certainly Zola was not above such practices. When his first book,
Les Contes à Ninon,
came out in 1864, he took the liberty of writing favorable reviews which he then obligingly sent to various newspapers (for this episode, see Brown,
Zola,
p. 119).
18
For this Preface, see
Thirésè Raquin,
pp. 1—6.
19
Ibid., p. 2.
20
Wilson-Bareau, ed.,
Manet by Himself,
p. 45.
21
Ibid.
22
In total, 839 painters cast ballots in 1868, against only 125 in 1867 (Roos,
Early Impressionism and the French State,
p. 104).
23
This description comes from Zola's novel
L 'Oeuvre,
first published in 1886; see
The Masterpiece,
trans. Thomas Walton, pp. 314—15.
24
Astruc,
Le Salon in time: Exposition au boulevard des Italiens
(Paris, 1860), p. 91.
25
L 'Artiste,
September 6,1857.
26
The Journal of Eugène Delacroix,
p. 187.

Chapter Twenty-four: A Salon of Newcomers

1
Roos,
Early Impressionism and the French State,
p. 251, note 15.
2
Rewald,
The History of Impressionism,
p. 185.
3
Quoted in Rewald,
The Ordeal of Paul Cézanne,
p. 59.
4
Ernest d'Hervilly,
Le Rappel,
April 17,1874. D'Hervilly is here describing Cézanne's typical appearance in the 1860s.
5
Quoted in Brombert,
Édouard Manet,
p. 228.
6
Quoted in Roos, op. cit., p. 117.
7
Monet by Himself,
p. 2 5.
8
Quoted in Roos, op. cit., p. 117.
9
Quoted in Roger L. Williams,
The French Revolution of 1870—1871
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), p. 45.
10
The Athenaeum,
November 8, 1862.
11
Though this novel never made it into print, a recent historian has suggested that Napoléon Ill's contribution to the history of the novel was twofold: "to have confounded the view that we all have a novel in us and to have confirmed the view that there are very many novels that are better for never having been-written" (Baguley,
Napoléon III and His Regime,
p. 337).
12
Quoted in Brown,
Zola,
p. 172. See also Zeldin,
Politics and Anger,
p. 175; and David Thomson,
Europe Since Napoléon
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1966), p. 268.
13
Quoted in Ralph E. Shikes and Paula Harper,
Pissarro: His Life and Work
(London: Quartet Books, 1980), p. 75.
14
For the positive reception of Pissarro's work in 1868, see ibid.
15
L'Événement illustré,
May 10, 1868.
16
Quoted in Hamilton,
Manet and his Critics,
p. 123.
17
Le Nain Jaune,
June 5, 1868;
Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
June 1,
1868; L'Artiste,
May 1868. For samples of the other reviews, see Hamilton,
Manet and His Critics,
p. 129.
18
Le Moniteur universel,
May 11, 1868.
19
L'Événement illustré,
May 10, 1868.
20
These reviews have been reprinted in Zola,
Écrits sur Tart,
ed. Jean-Pierre Leduc-Adine (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), pp. 191—223. For the importance of Zola's articles in
L'Evinement illustré
for identifying this avant-garde, and for the importance of the 1868 Salon more generally, see the excellent discussion in Roos,
Early Impressionism and the French State,
pp. 122—3.
21
For the
dépotoir
in the 1868 Salon, see Roos, op. cit., p. 119.
Chapter Twenty-five: Au Bord de la Mer
1
Quoted in Théodore Zeldin,
Intellect and Pride: France 1848—1945
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 45. The writer quoted is Alphonse Daudet, who was born in Nimes in 1840. For Zeldin's excellent discussion of the place of Provencals in the French imagination, see ibid., pp. 43-54.
2
Quoted in Shackleford and Wissman,
Impressions of Light,
p. 63.
3
Gréard,
Meissonier,
p. 49.
4
Ibid., p. 302.
5
Ibid., p. 195.
6
On this matter, see Dominique Brachlianoff's argument that Meissonier, at the time of his stay in Antibes, was influenced by the future Impressionists: "Meissonier reveals in his landscapes the concerns and qualities close to those of the Impressionists whose influence he incontestably absorbed" ("Heureux les Paysagistes!," in
Ernest Meissonier: Retrospective,
p. 149).
7
Meissonier's efforts eventually won the plaudits they deserved: one of these works,
La Route de la Salice,
was recently declared "one of the great successes of landscape painting in the nineteenth century" (quoted in
Ernest Meissonier: Retrospective,
p. 150).
8
Gréard,
Meissonier,
p. 99.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., pp. 98-9.
11
This sketchbook, only recently rediscovered, is held in the Département des Arts graphiques in the Musée du Louvre; for some illustrations—as well as for an account of Manet's Boulogne sojourn in 1868—see Wilson-Bareau and Degener, "Manet and the Sea," pp. 67-70 and 112-16.
12
On the genesis of the
termpompier,
see James Harding,
Artistes Pompiers: French Academic Art in the 19th Century
(London: Academy Editions, 1979), p. 7.
13
Quoted in Peter Ackroyd,
London: The Biography
(London: Chatto & Windus, 2000), pp. 587-8. James was writing in 1869.
14
Gaslight and Daylight
(London, 1859), p. 165.
15
Ackroyd, op. cit., p. 576.
16
Quoting the Service National des Staristiques, Zeldin finds 12,000 French permanently in Britain—the vast majority presumably in London—in 1861, and 26,600 in 1881
{Intellect and Pride,
p. 89). For Sala's description of the French in London, see Sala,
Gaslight and Daylight,
p. 169.

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