ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) Lot n° 5

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) Moses Saved from the Waters, Oil on canvas Oil on canvas 50,8 X 61 CM - 20 X 24 IN. This work will be included in the online catalog raisonné of Édouard Manet's work currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc. PROVENANCE Private collection, Spain "No one as a painter has studied more than Manet, to make himself a master of the craft" This is how Théodore Duret defines Manet, in his book Histoire d'Édouard Manet. After failing his entrance exam to the navy, and with the support of his parents, Édouard Manet began his training as a painter by joining the studio of the famous portraitist and history painter, Thomas Couture, in 1850. The relationship between the master and the pupil was a long series of clashes and quarrels due to their artistic differences. The master defended an art made of traditions, where the only subjects worthy of art were the scenes of antiquity; while the student preferred realistic subjects representing the men of his time with their frock coats and their usual clothes. In 1856, the two men had another argument, but this time the outcome was irreversible. Manet left the studio and the two men never saw each other again. By leaving Thomas Couture's studio, Manet did not abandon his desire to enter the Salons, on the contrary, he wished to continue to enrich and train himself. Before entering the Salons, I must," he said, "go and lay my card down with the great ancestors." It was in this process of researching the great masters that Manet embarked on a series of journeys that would mark his work. Following in the footsteps of 18th century models such as Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), Manet undertook his own Grand Tour and his pictorial education. The self-portrait of Filippino Lippi, which Manet reproduced in 1858 in a very touching adaptation, now in the Musée d'Orsay, is admired at the Uffizi in Florence. Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson (1606-1669), which amazed him in The Hague, also impressed him, so he made a personal version. Manet made a whole trip to Central Europe and Spain. The conclusion is clear, and of all these great painters, it is Velázquez whom Manet "declares [to be] the greatest painter there ever was", in a letter to Baudelaire, in 1865. In his Memoirs, the great art critic and confidant of Manet, Antonin Proust (1832-1905), reports: "He traveled to Holland, to Italy, to Spain. When he met, in Spain, with Velasquez, the preoccupation of the simplicity of the drawing and the transparency of the coloring, he felt happy like a man who finds himself among his own, after an exploration in a country where his language is ignored. He did not deny the influence that Velasquez had on him, he confessed it. The conscientious sincerity of the Italian Primitives moved him, and the boldness of Franz Hals' biases made such an impression on him in Holland that, back in Paris, armed with all these memories, he decided to approach the various aspects of Parisian life frankly. Manet's life is, in this respect, a great example of loyalty. From 1858 to 1860, he made a series of studies, The Student of Salamanca, Moses Saved from the Waters, The Toilet, The Walk, simply noting on the back of these studies what the masters he admired had taught him." The picture presented here was probably painted during the period from 1856 to 1860. Indeed, in Antonin Proust's recollections, we know that Manet had, at that time, begun to paint "a great picture" whose subject was Moses saved from the waters. "Manet had begun a large painting on Rue Lavoisier, Moses Saved from the Waters, which he never completed, and of which only a figure remains that he cut out of the canvas and entitled The Surprised Nymph. In the work that we have the honor of presenting, we can still feel the hand of Couture's workshop, if only by the choice of the biblical subject. There are, in this respect, about ten works that take up classical themes, which may be surprising for one of the leaders of impressionism. The filial bond depicted here in a soft and precious way echoes the representations of motherhood by Raphael (1483-1520), who humanizes the infant Jesus. In contrast to the porcelain skin of Pharaoh's daughter, the background is very dark, in homage to Velázquez. This choice allows us to focus on the two characters, and their mythological destiny. The fact that the work is not finished is due to the historical side of the piece, we enter into the design of a painting, which makes the painting even more important for its contribution to the understanding of the work of Manet. Moses saved from the waters is the image of the N