Manet summered at Gennevilliers in 1874, often spending time with Monet and Renoir across the Seine at Argenteuil, where Boating was painted. In this scene of outdoor leisure, he not only adopted the lighter touch and palette of his younger Impressionist colleagues but also borrowed the broad planes of color, strong diagonals, high vantage point, and close cropping typical of Japanese prints. Rodolphe Leenhoff, the artist’s brother-in-law, is thought to have posed for the sailor, but the identity of the woman is uncertain. Manet exhibited this painting at the Salon of 1879.
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Fig. 1. Mary Cassatt, "The Boating Party," 1893/1894, oil on canvas, 35 7/16 x 46 3/16 in. (90 x 117.3 cm) (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
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Fig. 2. Stop, “La Femme Edredon, par M. Manet, chef de l’entreprise des bateaux coupés” (The Eiderdown-Woman, by Mr. Manet, leader of the business of cut boats), "Le Journal amusant," June 14, 1879, no. 204 (Bibliothèque nationale, Paris) (Repro’d. in Darragon 1991, p. 404, no.339.)
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Fig. 3. Edouard Manet, "Boats at Sea, Sunset," ca. 1868, oil on canvas, 43 x 94 cm (Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre)
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Fig. 4. Edouard Manet, "Argenteuil," 1874, oil on canvas, 149 x 115 cm (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai)
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Fig. 5. Edouard Manet, "The Swallows," 1873, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm (Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection, Zürich)
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Fig. 6. Edouard Manet, "On the Beach," 1873, oil on canvas, 95.9 x 73 cm (Musée d’Orsay, Paris)
Artwork Details
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Title:Boating
Artist:Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)
Date:1874
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:38 1/4 x 51 1/4 in. (97.2 x 130.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number:29.100.115
The Painting: In the summer of 1874, Edouard Manet painted this ode to the relatively new bourgeois and upper class Parisian leisure activity, boating on the Seine, when he was living at his family’s property in Gennevilliers across the river from Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir in Argenteuil (both communes northwest of Paris). The male and female boaters in The Met’s picture are out to "see and be seen" in the new casual dress favored for such sporty outings, a jaunty white boating outfit with a straw hat for him and a maritime blue-striped dress with a white hat for her. More specifically, his white shirt, white flannel trousers, and straw boater with a blue border have been identified as the uniform of the tony Cercle nautique boating club, headquartered in Asnières (Herbert 1988). The netting on her hat could keep away such possible intrusions from outdoor life as river water and dust, then believed to be harmful to one’s health (see Marni Kessler, Sheer Presence: The Veil in Manet’s Paris, Minneapolis, 2006). While the black ribbon on her hat at left runs parallel to the sail’s sheet at right, the blue-green ribbon on his hat as well as the blues of her dress echo the various blues of the water that dominate the image. The artist worked to unify the composition through both color and line in these ways. The sail at right is rendered at an odd angle, leaving the subject of the sitters’ activity barely cropped into view. The figures have been brought up to the very foreground so that the viewer might have immediate entry into the scene. Rather than use the canvas as a traditionally illusory three-dimensional window onto another world, Manet chose to emphasize the flat, two-dimensional aspects of the painting by making the viewer’s vantage point very low, omitting a horizon line and any visible land beyond the water, and employing an increasingly smooth texture in the brushstrokes as they mount to the top of the broad plane of blue water. At bottom and even at the female sitter’s bodice, the brushstrokes of blue paint Manet used to compose her dress exceed the contours of the garment, seeming to fly off into space and also emphasizing the planar aspects of the composition.
While the male boater with his left hand on the tiller most often has been associated with Manet’s brother-in-law Rodolphe Leenhoff (first so-identified in Lochard 1883–84), there has been much less of a consensus as to the female sitter’s identity. Leenhoff was the brother of Manet’s Dutch wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, and was a painter, too. Manet appears to have depicted these same two sitters in a very similar composition shortly before (see Related Works below). Over the years, various other identities have been suggested, from Manet’s writer-friend George Moore and his mistress (Mather 1930), to the French naturalist short-story master Guy de Maupassant (Gallas 1934) and Maupassant’s friend Baron Barbier (Blanche 1938) for the man and Suzanne Leenhoff (Salinger 1947; Kimball and Venturi 1948), Camille Monet (Adler 1986), and a professional model (Cachin 1990) for the woman.
The Salon and Thereafter: While former Met curator Charles Moffett (1983) noted that the size, theme, and finish of the picture suggest that Manet may have thought to submit it to the annual Paris Salon of 1875 with his related Argenteuil (see Related Works below), Manet seems to have held the picture back from immediate exhibition. When he showed the painting at the Salon in 1879 with In the Conservatory (1879, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin), Manet expressed to his friend, the Symbolist poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé, dissatisfaction with the installation of his two paintings: "I’m afraid that the way I’m hung in the Salon will leave me as poor as before, and I’m in need of money" (Manet May 8, 1879). It is, perhaps, incredible to consider that the artist-dandy behind The Met’s masterpiece painting could have feared that the way Boating (exhibited at the Salon in 1879 as En bateau [or, On A Boat]) was hung at the Salon (quite possibly "skied," or placed high up and away from eye-level) could have left him no richer than before the official Salon opened. He even wrote to ask Under-Secretary of State Edmond Turquet to reconsider purchasing one of his two paintings on view at the Salon for the French state’s contemporary art collection, then housed at the Musée du Luxembourg (Manet June 6, 1879). In fact, though, Boating sold straight from the Salon to the banker-art collector and Director of the literary journal Gil Blas Victor Desfossés for one thousand five hundred francs. Desfossés also owned Courbet’s great revery on the artist’s life The Studio of the Painter (1854–55, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and paintings by Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Camille Pissarro. Five years later, Desfossés lent The Met’s picture to Manet’s one-man show at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and, ten years later, to the Universal Exposition of 1889. When Mary Cassatt saw the painting at the Salon of 1879, she called it "the last word in painting" (Havemeyer 1961). The image stuck with her since, fifteen years later, she drew on its use of space for her own image of a couple boating, The Boating Party (see fig. 1 above), and, when the picture was with the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1895, Cassatt recommended that her close friends Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer acquire the painting as well. Louisine bequeathed it to The Met upon her death in 1929.
Unlike Cassatt, critics who saw Boating at the Salon of 1879 disliked its rough, sketch-like execution (for example, Fourcaud 1879 and Baignères 1879). A caricature that appeared in Le Journal amusant (fig. 2) even turned the woman’s dress into a fluffy eiderdown quilt, cheekily renaming the picture "La femme edredon" (or, The Eiderdown-Woman). In this way, the caricaturist Stop compared to a down quilt’s feathers the artist’s free-form blue brushstrokes at the bottom of the canvas that seem to grow from the blue dress to take on a life of their own. Jules Castagnary (1879) preferred In the Conservatory to The Met‘s picture. The novelist and critic Joris-Karl Huysmans (1879) was the rare visitor to praise Boating for its flight from traditional use of color; he also noted the cropping of the boat to be indebted to similar compositional devices found in Japanese prints, then at the height of fashion in Paris. (See a discussion of the picture’s japoniste character below.)
The Summer of 1874 with the Impressionists and Monsieur Manet: The summer of 1874 was a moment when Manet was working very closely with the Impressionists Monet and Renoir at Argenteuil. Their sense of camaraderie (along with Alfred Sisley) was strong, with mutual appreciation and a sense of seeking goals as a group. Innovations in train travel from 1850 on had brought new and more frequent train lines that enabled Parisians, including Manet and his younger painter-friends, to escape to the country for leisure activities on the Seine in Argenteuil, as in some of the other suburbs of Paris, Chatou, Croissy, and Bougival. Industry and recreation were side by side at Argenteuil, but Manet and the Impressionists sometimes included hints of this juxtaposition (see the discussion of Argenteuil [fig. 4] below) and sometimes, as in Boating, kept any glimmer of industry at bay. Manet’s wholehearted embrace of plein-air painting (painting out-of-doors) and the lighter, brighter color palette preferred by Monet and Renoir has been called a "vampirization," or sucking dry, of Monet’s painting techniques by Madeline (2011), and Zola (1884) similarly noted Manet’s strong debt to his younger friends that summer. Even painting outdoors, though, Manet tended to emphasize the figure more than his friends did, as in the foregrounded figures of Boating.
Japonisme and Compositional Strategies: There is no question that with the use of foreshortening, abrupt cropping, broad plane of color, strong diagonals, and lack of a horizon line, Manet here wholeheartedly embraced compositional devices from the Japanese woodblock prints of boating scenes by the ukiyo-e ("floating world") artists Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) (for example, his Water Scene (1840, The Met JP1252) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) (for example, his images along the Tokaido, such as Spring Rain at Tsuchiyama, from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1834–35, The Met JP520). Manet also worked to reduce extraneous, distracting lines such as the sheet, originally painted at a different diagonal angle, held in the male boater’s right hand, rather than in its current position tied to the belaying pin (recently correctly identified by Robert Zimmerman in conversation with the author), neatly echoing the line of the woman’s hat ribbon. (See Technical Notes below.)
Manet enjoyed friendships with key figures in the introduction of Japanese art in France, such as the great collectors of ukiyo-e prints, Japanese bronzes, ceramics, and textiles Philippe Burty and fellow artist Félix Bracquemond. Like his friends, Manet had been exposed to the novel display of Japanese arts and crafts at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867 (which included prints by Hiroshige and the now-celebrated Hokusai manga books) and formed a close bond that summer with Claude Monet, who was already collecting ukiyo-e prints in the 1860s (see the catalogue entry for his Garden at Sainte-Adresse [The Met, 67.241]). All played a part in Manet’s japoniste artistic development. Manet, himself, had already explored such accoutrements as Japanese fans in his La Dame aux éventails (1873, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), a portrait of Nina de Callias from the year before Boating.
Wichmann (1985) noted that Manet’s sharp truncating of the sailboat followed upon the much more experimental Boats at Sea, Sunset (fig. 3), a painting from about 1868 based on the upper section of one of his watercolors (located by Wichmann in Basel). In the Le Havre picture, the sails in the foreground are so cropped as to leave out the rest of the boat, and the sails’ strongly foregrounded placement similarly emphasizes the flatness of the picture plane. Wichmann called Hiroshige’s Mount Inasa at Nagasaki in Hizen Province (1853–56, from Famous Places from more than 60 Provinces, Osterreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna) and Saijo in Iyo Province from the same series (1853, The Met, JP591) obvious influences on Manet’s 1868 painting. We might well note the influence in The Met’s Boating as well, where the sail is similarly cropped.
Related Works: Just shortly before painting Boating (only a few days before, according to Tabarant [1947]), Manet produced Argenteuil (fig. 4), which seems to place the same figures in different boating costumes and poses, surrounded by a background that includes the smokestacks of Argenteuil. While Rouart and Wildenstein (1975, vol. 1, p. 184, no. 221) identified the female sitter in Argenteuil as a Parisian model Manet brought along for the ride, the same association has been made only rarely about the female sitter in The Met’s picture. Where it is the woman who looks out to the viewer impassively in Argenteuil while the man actively attempts to engage her, it is the man whose eyes meet those of the viewer in The Met’s picture while the woman’s profiled face looks off into the distance. In comparison to Argenteuil, Boating shows the artist taking up a very similar subject but reducing the forms and cutting back on all extraneous detail. Herbert (1988, p. 236) discussed the differing classes depicted in the two canvases.
The same fashionable "activewear" hat worn by the woman in Boating can be found in four of Manet’s other paintings from 1873–74. In two, his wife Suzanne Leenhoff Manet posed wearing it, and Monet’s wife Camille wore it in two others: The Swallows (fig. 5), a picture of Suzanne and Manet’s mother on a trip to the northern seaside at Berck-sur-Mer; On the Beach (fig. 6), from the same trip, where Manet’s brother Eugène and Suzanne sit on the sand, she with a muslin veil to protect her from the wind and sand; The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil (1874, The Met, 1976.201.14), where Camille Monet wears the hat in her own garden that same summer at Argenteuil; and Banks of the Seine at Argenteuil (1874, Courtauld Gallery, London), where Camille waits at the shore with Jean. Whether the painter lent one of his wife’s hats to Camille as a prop when she posed for him or whether it was simply the most de rigueur hat of the season has been debated (Moffett 1983 and Bailey 1997).
Technical Notes: The man's right hand originally held the sheet, and traces of this position are still evident on the water and the boat (Stang 1972). This pentimento (visible trace of earlier painting on the final surface of the canvas) is a telling rare example that reveals a bit of the artist’s process (see Japonisme and Compositional Strategies above). (The change in position of the sheet is still more visible in x-rays.) Moffett (1974) noted that "by altering the direction of the rope Manet removed a cue to logical perspective and thereby further emphasized the flatness of the picture space." In addition, Perutz (1993) suggested that the figure of the woman was added as an afterthought because curving brown strokes of paint that have become visible to the naked eye in the area of the woman’s upper right arm and bodice reveal that the area of the boat’s brown paint originally extended into the space now occupied by the figure.
Jane R. Becker 2017
Inscription: Signed (lower right): Manet
the artist, Paris (1874–79; sold at the Paris Salon in 1879, for Fr 1,500 to Desfossés); Victor Desfossés, Paris (1879–95; sold on May 7, 1895 for Fr 25,000 to Durand-Ruel); [Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1895, stock no. 3267, as "En bateau"; sold on September 19 for Fr 55,000 to Havemeyer ]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (1895–his d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1907–d. 1929; cat., 1931, pp. 138–39, ill.)
Paris. Manet's studio, 4, rue de Saint-Pétersbourg. April 15–May 1, 1876, no catalogue [see Bertall 1876, Deraismes 1876, Cachin and Moffett 1983].
Paris. Salon. May 12–June 1879, no. 2011 (as "En bateau").
Paris. École Nationale des Beaux-Arts. "Exposition des œuvres de Édouard Manet," January 6–28, 1884, no. 76 (lent by M Desfossés).
Paris. Exposition Internationale Universelle. "Exposition centennale de l'art français (1789–1889)," May–November 1889, no. 498 (lent by V. Desfossés) [see Moreau-Nélaton 1906].
New York. Durand-Ruel. "Loan Exhibition: Paintings by Édouard Manet, 1832–1883," November 29–December 13, 1913, no. 13.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 79 (as "In a Boat [En bateau]") [2nd ed., 1958, no. 157].
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Museum of Art. "Manet and Renoir," November 29, 1933–January 1, 1934, no catalogue [see Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin 29 (December 1933), p. 17].
Art Gallery of Toronto. "Loan Exhibition of Paintings," November 1–December 1, 1935, no. 181.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Great French Paintings: An Exhibition in Memory of Chauncey McCormick," January 20–February 20, 1955, no. 23.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Édouard Manet, 1832–1883," November 3–December 11, 1966, no. 125.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Édouard Manet, 1832–1883," January 13–February 19, 1967, no. 125.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 78).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, no. 374.
Paris. Grand Palais. "Centenaire de l'impressionnisme," September 21–November 24, 1974, no. 22.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, no. 22.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Manet, 1832–1883," April 22–August 1, 1983, no. 140.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Manet, 1832–1883," September 10–November 27, 1983, no. 140.
Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. State Hermitage Museum. "From Delacroix to Matisse," March 15–May 10, 1988, no. 14.
Moscow. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. "From Delacroix to Matisse," June 10–July 30, 1988, no. 14.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection," March 27–June 20, 1993, no. A358.
Washington. Phillips Collection. "Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party'," September 21, 1996–February 9, 1997, unnumbered cat. (fig. 27).
Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "La collection Havemeyer: Quand l'Amérique découvrait l'impressionnisme...," October 20, 1997–January 18, 1998, no. 20.
Washington. National Gallery of Art. "The Impressionists at Argenteuil," May 28–August 20, 2000, no. 40.
Hartford, Conn. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "The Impressionists at Argenteuil," September 6–December 3, 2000, no. 40.
Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. "Manet en el Prado," October 13, 2003–February 8, 2004, no. 93.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 62.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Manet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years," May 26–September 8, 2019, no. 3.
Los Angeles. J. Paul Getty Museum. "Manet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years," October 8, 2019–January 12, 2020, no. 3.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Manet / Degas," September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024, unnumbered cat. (colorpl. 114).
Henri Fantin-Latour. Letter to Otto Scholderer. August 16, 1874 [published in Arnoux et al. 2010], states that Manet is working on two plein air paintings on a boat [including this one].
Stéphane Mallarmé. "The Impressionists and Édouard Manet." The Art Monthly Review and Photographic Portfolio, a Magazine Devoted to the Fine and Industrial Arts and Illustrated Photography 1, no. 9 (September 30, 1876) [reprinted in T. A. Gronberg, "Manet: A Retrospective," New York, 1990, p. 146], calls it "Boaters".
Bertall. "L'exposition de M. Manet." Paris-Journal (April 30, 1876), p. 9?, refers to it as the "Canotier avec cette canotière," noting that it was in an exhibition of Manet's work in 1876, and remarking that it was not included in the Salon of 1875.
Maria Deraismes. Letter to Édouard Manet. May 5, 1876, notes that it was included in an exhibition held by Manet in 1876 and praises it very highly.
Edouard Manet. Letter to Stéphane Mallarmé. May 8, 1879 [postmark] [published in Juliet Wilson-Bareau, "Manet by Himself, Correspondence & Conversation: Paintings, Pastels, Prints & Drawings," Boston, 1991, p. 186], complains about the way his works, including this one, have been hung at the Salon.
Edouard Manet. Letter to Edmond Turquet. June 6, 1879 [published in Juliet Wilson-Bareau, "Manet by Himself, Correspondence & Conversation: Paintings, Pastels, Prints & Drawings," Boston, 1991, p. 186], requests that Turquet reconsider purchasing one of his paintings at the 1879 Salon.
Arthur Baignères. "Le Salon de 1879 (Premier article)." Gazette des beaux-arts, 2nd ser., 19 (June 1879), p. 564.
[Jules] Castagnary. "Salon de 1879 (6e article)." Le Siècle (June 28, 1879), p. 2.
Stop. Le Journal amusant (June 14, 1879), no. 204 [reproduced in Darragon 1991, p. 404, no. 339], makes a caricature of this painting, with the woman's dress as an eiderdown.
[Louis de] Fourcaud. "Le Salon du 'Gaulois': Impressions Parisiennes." Le Gaulois (June 18, 1879), p. 2, criticizes its execution as that of a rough sketch.
Théodore Véron. Dictionnaire Véron ou mémorial de l'art et des artistes contemporains organe de l'institut universel (Section des Beaux-Arts): Le Salon de 1879. Vol. 3, Paris, 1879, p. 388, states that the woman resembles the female sitter in "In the Conservatory" (1879, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin), with which it appeared at the Salon that year; calls its effect harmonious enough but remarks that the painting is missing shadows too much.
Charles Tardieu. "La peinture au Salon de Paris, 1879: Itinéraire." L'art 17 (1879), pp. 177–78, as "En bateau"; calls it "une sorte de Caillebotte supérieur" (a kind of superior Caillebotte).
"Chronique: Première promenade au Salon." Le temps (May 11, 1879), p. 2, as "Scène de canotage".
Messire-Jean. "Le Salon: IV." Le soir (May 14, 1879), p. 2, as "En bateau".
Théodore de Banville. "Salon de 1879, III." Le National (May 16, 1879), p. 2, notes "il y a dans cette eau des reflets d'argent qui nous captivent comme les moires d'une riche étoffe, et toute cette couleur frissonnante vibre à souhait pour le plaisir des yeux" (there are silver reflections in this water that captivate us like the moires of a rich fabric, and all this shivering color vibrates to perfection for the pleasure of the eyes).
Pierre Véron. "Chronique parisienne: Le Salon de 1879." Journal amusant 32 (May 24, 1879), p. 2.
Henry Trianon. "Le Salon de 1879." Le constitutionnel 64 (May 30, 1879), p. 2, as "En bateau"; remarks that if it had been the only work by Manet on view the author would not have even stopped at it; cites errors in the artist's manner of drawing, such as the boater's protruding knee, the woman's chest, and "la jambe gauche s'attachant où la jambe droite aurait dû s'attacher" (the left leg attaching itself where the right leg should); also finds failures in the color choices and the "à peu près de la touche" (approximate touches of paint).
J.-K. Huysmans. "Le Salon de 1879." Le Voltaire (June 10, 1879) [reprinted in Huysmans, "L'Art moderne," Paris, 1883, pp. 35–36], praises this picture for its freedom from convention and tradition, especially in regard to color, and notes that the cropping of the boat derives from Japanese prints.
L. de Beaumarchez. "Le Salon de 1879." La presse 44 (June 13, 1879), p. 2, states that it is but a sketch, that the forms lack precision, and that the arms do not attach to the body nor the hands to the arms.
Daniel Bernard. "Salon de 1879." L'univers illustré 22 (June 14, 1879), p. 374, writes "voici une femme qui ressemble à un homard vide; une carapace seulement; pas de corps sous cette robe flottant à vide. Voici un canotier qui rame avec des nageoires de lion marin . . . . Nous n'y tenons plus; nous pouffons" (here is a woman who resembles an empty lobster; only a shell; no body under that dress floating in emptiness. Here is a boater who rows with sea lion fins . . . . We can't stand it anymore; we giggle).
F[rédéric].-C. de Syène. "Salon de 1879. II." L'artiste 2 (July 1879), p. 7, criticizes it.
K[enyon]. C[ox]. "The Paris Salon: The New Realism Making Rapid Strides—American Pictures." Cincinnati Daily Gazette 104 (July 9, 1879), p. 2, calls it "fairly in the impressionist ranks" and states of it "The appearance of having taken a bit of nature as he found it, without composition . . . is got by cutting the figures in two and showing only parts of them. Having chosen his subject in this way, he seems carefully to have avoided all appearance of drawing, of modeling, or of detail, and laying in two or three broad tones, more or less true, and a number of apparently aimless dabs with his brush—behold an impressionist picture!".
Victor de Swarte. Salon de 1879: Chronique. Paris, 1880, pp. 25–26, as "En Bateau"; calls it and "Dans la Serre" (In the Conservatory) (1878/79, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin), Manet's two offerings at the Salon of 1879, "ce premier jet qui n'a qu'un tort, c'est d'être présenté inachevé, avec toute la saveur d'une ébauche oubliée sur un chevalet" (this first draft that has but one mistake, that of being presented unfinished, with all of the flavor of a sketch forgotten on an easel), but praises his plein-air effects.
H[enri]. Guérard. "Manet's Decoration by the State." Le carillon (July 16, 1881) [reprinted in T. A. Gronberg, "Manet: A Retrospective," New York, 1990, p. 171].
F.-G. Dumas, ed. Salon de 1879: Catalogue illustré. Exh. cat., Salon. Paris, 1882, p. 100, as "En bateau"; reproduces a drawing by Manet of the woman in the boat.
Fernand Lochard. [Reproductions d’oeuvres d’Edouard Manet]. Vol. 1, 2, 1883–84, unpaginated, pl. 393 [Département des estampes et photographie, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, 4-DC-300(H)-(vol. 1) and 300 (Gy2)–(vol. 2)], includes "En bâteau" as number thirty-eight on a list of Manet's paintings; states that it was painted in Argenteuil at the same time as "Les canotiers d'Argenteuil" ("Argenteuil," 1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai); identifies the male boater in both paintings as portraits of Rodolphe Leenhoff.
Edmond Bazire. Manet. Paris, 1884, p. 104, as "En bateau".
Jacques de Biez. Édouard Manet. Paris, 1884, p. 46.
Louis Gonse. "Manet." Gazette des beaux-arts, 2nd ser., 29 (February 1884), p. 146.
Joséphin Péladan. "Le procédé de Manet d'après l'exposition de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts." L'artiste 1 (February 1884), pp. 114–15, criticizes the drawing of the hands of the boatman.
Emile Zola. Exposition des œuvres de Édouard Manet. Exh. cat., École Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Paris, 1884, p. 16, refers to it as "les Canotiers".
Félix Fénéon. "A l'exposition d'Edouard Manet." La libre revue (January 16, 1884) [reprinted in Joan U. Halperin, ed., "Oeuvres plus que complètes," Geneva, 1970, vol. 1, p. 20].
L. de Fourcaud. "Exposition centennale de l'art français. IV." Revue de l'exposition universelle de 1889. Ed. L. de Fourcaud and F.-G. Dumas. Paris, 1889, pp. 51–52.
J. Meier-Graefe. "Die Stellung Eduard Manet's." Die Kunst für Alle 15 (October 15, 1899), p. 67, ill.
Antonin Proust. "The Art of Édouard Manet." The International Studio 12 (February 1901), ill. p. 228.
Théodore Duret. Histoire d'Édouard Manet et de son œuvre. Paris, 1902, pp. 108, 117–18, 237, no. 181, dates it 1874.
Hugo v. Tschudi. Édouard Manet. Berlin, 1902, pp. 23–24, ill. p. 29, as "Im Segelschiff"; calls it "eine Komposition von geistreicher Kühnheit des Ausschnitts" (a composition of witty boldness of detail).
Adolf Hölzel. "Über Künstlerische Ausdrucksmittel und Deren Verhältniz zu Natur und Bild." Die Kunst für Alle 20 (December 15, 1904), p. 129, ill.
Henry Marcel. La Peinture française au XIXe siècle. Paris, 1905, p. 228, fig. 87, as "En bateau".
Léon Leenhoff. Manet: [ensemble de notes et de documents sur le peintre]. ca. 1910, p. 79 [Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Dept: Estampes et photographie, RESERVE 8-YB3-2401
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10548955r.]
, lists "En Bateau" as having sold for fifteen hundred francs in 1879 [at the Salon].
Etienne Moreau-Nélaton. Manuscrit de l'œuvre d'Édouard Manet, peinture et pastels. [1906], unpaginated, no. 188 [Département des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris].
Richard Muther. The History of Modern Painting. London, 1907, pp. 106, 117–18, ill. p. 115.
Théodore Duret in François Benoit. "Édouard Manet et les impressionistes." Histoire du paysage en France. Paris, 1908, p. 310 [see Ref. Rouart and Wildenstein 1975].
Rudolf Adelbert Meyer. "Manet und Monet." Die Kunst Unserer Zeit 19 (1908), pp. 51, 55, ill., dates it 1874.
Camille de Sainte-Croix. "Edouard Manet." Portraits d'hier 1 (December 15, 1909), p. 19.
Emil Waldmann. "Édouard Manet in der Sammlung Pellerin." Kunst und Künstler 8 (May 1910), p. 391, calls it "En bateau".
Léonce Bénédite. Histoire des Beaux-Arts, 1800–1900. Paris, 1910, p. 730, ill. p. 257, as "Les Canotiers".
Jean Laran and Georges Le Bas. Manet. Paris, 1912, pp. 95–96, pl. XI, quote contemporary criticism.
Julius Meier-Graefe. Édouard Manet. Munich, 1912, p. 231 n. 3, p. 232, fig. 133, identifies the man as Manet's brother-in-law, Rodolphe Leenhoff.
Théodore Duret. Manet and the French Impressionists. 2nd ed. [1st ed. 1910]. London, 1912, pp. 96, 235, no. 181, ill. opp. p. 96.
Antonin Proust. Edouard Manet. Paris, 1913, pp. 93, 144, 166.
Achille Ségard. Mary Cassatt: Un peintre des enfants et des mères. Paris, 1913, pp. 61–62, notes its influence on Cassatt's "La barque" (National Gallery of Art, Washington) and remarks that she admired it and recommended that Mrs. Havemeyer purchase it.
Antonin Proust. "Erinnerungen an Édouard Manet." Kunst und Künstler 11 (March 1913), p. 323, ill.
Théodore Duret. Histoire de Edouard Manet et de son œuvre. Paris, 1919, pp. 145, 154–55, 261, as "En bateau" in the Havemeyer collection; notes that, while the painting did not succeed in receiving praise, it raised no great hostility at the Salon of 1879.
André Fontainas and Louis Vauxcelles. Histoire générale de l'art français de la Révolution à nos jours. Vol. 1, Paris, 1922, p. 126.
Emil Waldmann. Édouard Manet. Berlin, 1923, pp. 78, 81, 129, ill., reproduces the same drawing by Manet of the woman in the boat as in Dumas 1882.
Jacques-Emile Blanche. Manet. Paris, 1924, ill. p. 32, as "Les Canotiers".
Léon Rosenthal. Manet: Aquafortiste et lithographe. Paris, 1925, pp. 139, 147.
Etienne Moreau-Nélaton. Manet raconté par lui-même. Paris, 1926, vol. 2, pp. 24, 57, 129, no. 76, figs. 195 and 352, agrees with the identification of the sitter as Rudolphe Leenhoff and publishes a photograph of the picture hanging in the posthumous exhibition of 1884.
Paul Jamot. "Études sur Manet." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 15 (January 1927), p. 44.
A. Tabarant. "Les Manet de la collection Havemeyer." La Renaissance 13 (February 1930), pp. 68, 72, ill., identifies the man as Rudolphe Leenhoff.
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "The Havemeyer Pictures." The Arts 16 (March 1930), p. 479, identifies the couple as George Moore and his mistress; praises it.
Paul Fierens. "Edouard Manet." L'art et les artistes 25 (October 1930), p. 28.
A. Tabarant. Manet, histoire catalographique. Paris, 1931, pp. 264–65, no. 215, agrees with the identification of the man as Rudolphe Leenhoff and notes that the woman has not yet been identified; reprints contemporary criticism.
Charles Léger. Édouard Manet. Paris, 1931, p. 12, notes that it was not admired at the Salon.
Paul Jamot and Georges Wildenstein. Manet. Paris, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 60, 96, 112, 149, no. 244; vol. 2, fig. 176, identify the man as Rodolphe Leenhoff.
Paul Colin. Édouard Manet. Paris, 1932, pp. 42, 74, lists it with works painted in the summer and fall of 1874, but dates it 1875.
K. R. Gallas. Letter to the Director of the MMA. May 15, 1934, suggests that the man is Guy de Maupassant.
Loan Exhibition of Paintings Celebrating the Opening of the Margaret Eaton Gallery and The East Gallery. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of Toronto. Toronto, 1935, pp. 29, 38, no. 181, ill., notes that it was painted before 1879.
Jacques-Emile Blanche. Portraits of a Lifetime: The Late Victorian Era, The Edwardian Pageant, 1870–1914. [reprint; 1st ed. 1937]. 1938, p. 39, identifies the man as Baron Barbier, a friend of Guy de Maupassant.
Edouard Manet nach eigenen und fremden Zeugnissen. Ed. Hans Graber. Basel, 1940, p. 218, as "Im Boot".
Gotthard Jedlicka. Édouard Manet. Zürich, 1941, pp. 173–74, 404 n. 5, regards it as a preparation for "Argenteuil" (RW221; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai) and "The Atelier of Claude Monet" (RW19; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich).
R. H. Wilenski. Modern French Painters. 2nd ed. London, 1944, p. 43, as "En bateau".
A. Tabarant. Manet et ses œuvres. 4th ed. (1st. ed. 1942). Paris, 1947, pp. 246–47, 345–49, 492, 512, 539, no. 226, fig. 226, states that it was painted a few days after "Argenteuil" (RW221), noting that Rudolph Leenhoff is the sitter.
Margaretta M. Salinger. "Notes." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 5 (March 1947), p. 172, ill. (overall and detail on cover), notes that it was painted in the summer of 1874 in Argenteuil, at about the same time as "Argenteuil" (RW221); identifies the man as Rudolf Leenhoff and suggests that the woman is Manet's wife and his sister, Suzanne Leenhoff.
Fiske Kimball and Lionello Venturi. Great Paintings in America. New York, 1948, pp. 180–81, no. 83, ill. (color), dates it 1874 and agrees with the idenfication of the sitters as Madame Manet and her brother, Rodolphe Leenhoff; calls this more daring than "Argenteuil" (RW221), which was executed at about the same time, and notes that these works marked a turning point in the style of Manet; comments that Monet liked to paint on a boat, which he called his "studio," and that Manet painted Monet and Madame Monet twice on this boat, but left both sketches unfinished, suggesting that they were the first idea for this picture (RW218 and 219).
Lionello Venturi. Impressionists and Symbolists. Vol. 2, New York, 1950, pp. 23–24, fig. 20.
Douglas Cooper. Manet: Paintings. London, 1950, p. 5.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 63.
George Heard Hamilton. Manet and His Critics. New Haven, 1954, pp. 211–12, 232, 265, pl. 31.
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Guide to the Picture Galleries." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12, part 2 (January 1954), pp. 7, 52, ill.
Jean Leymarie. Impressionism. Lausanne, 1955, vol. 2, p. 35, suggests that the couple pictured is the same as in "Argenteuil" (RW221).
Georges Bataille. Manet: Biographical and Critical Study. New York, 1955, pp. 94, 109, ill. (color).
Lionello Venturi. Four Steps Toward Modern Art: Giorgione, Caravaggio, Manet, Cézanne. New York, 1956, p. 57, fig. 23.
John Richardson. Édouard Manet: Paintings and Drawings. London, 1958, p. 126, no. 48, fig. 48.
Jacques Lethève. Impressionnistes et symbolistes devant la presse. Paris, 1959, p. 105.
Henri Perruchot. La vie de Manet. Paris, 1959, pp. 250–51, 280.
John Canaday. Mainstreams of Modern Art. New York, 1959, p. 177, fig. 198, states that the subject has been caught "snapshot fashion".
W[ilhelm]. Uhde. Edouard Manet: Gemälde und Zeichnungen. Cologne, 1959, pl. 48, as "Im Boot (En Bateau)".
Denis Rouart. Manet. London, 1960, pp. 61, 70.
Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York, 1961, p. 225, calls it "Marine"; states that Mary Cassatt referred to it as "the last word in painting" and that Manet painted it in a couple of days, just after he finished his prolonged work on "Argenteuil" (RW221).
J. Mathey. Graphisme de Manet: Essai de catalogue raisonné des dessins. Vol. 1, Paris, 1961, p. 33, under no. 135, publishes a study for the woman, done in 1874 (Ströllen collection, Paris).
Jean Leymarie. French Painting: The Nineteenth Century. Geneva, 1962, p. 168.
Henri Perruchot. Édouard Manet. New York, 1962, pp. 14, 87, no. 60, colorpl. 60.
Henri Perruchot. Manet. Ed. Jean Ellsmoor. Cleveland, 1962, pp. 205, 227.
Roger Charansonney. Manet. Paris, 1964, pp. 6, 14, colorpl. 12, as "En bateau"; calls it "un des témoignages les plus marquants" (one of the most significant testimonies) to this period of Manet's artistic interplay with Monet.
Denys Sutton. "The Discerning Eye of Louisine Havemeyer." Apollo 82 (September 1965), pp. 232, fig. 5.
Anne Coffin Hanson. Édouard Manet, 1832–1883. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 1966, pp. 142–43, 145, no. 125, fig. 125 (overall and detail), notes that the higher point of view and the cut-off boat and sail are highly reminiscent of the style of many Japanese prints.
George Heard Hamilton. "Is Manet Still 'Modern'?" Art News Annual 31 (1966), p. 162, dates it 1875; comments that the lack of a horizon shows the influence of Japanese art.
Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 24, 45–47, ill., date it summer of 1874.
Sandra Orienti inThe Complete Paintings of Manet. New York, 1967, p. 103, no. 194, ill., and colorpl. XXXII [French ed., pp. 103–4, no. 196].
Margaretta M. Salinger. "Windows Open to Nature." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (Summer 1968), unpaginated, ill. (color and black and white, overall and detail).
Alain De Leiris. The Drawings of Édouard Manet. Berkeley, 1969, p. 125, under no. 429, publishes a drawing related to this work and suggests that the drawing published by Mathey [see Ref. 1961] is a copy by another hand.
Fritz Novotny. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1780–1880. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth, 1971, p. 339, as "In a Sailing-Boat".
Hideya Sasaki. Ed. Manet. Tokyo, 1971, p. 128, fig. 41.
John Rewald. "The Impressionist Brush." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32, no. 3 (1973/1974), pp. 30–31, no. 19, ill. (overall and color detail).
Carl R. Baldwin. The Impressionist Epoch. Exh. brochure, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [New York], 1974, pp. 12–13, ill.
Charles S. Moffett inImpressionism: A Centenary Exhibition. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1974, pp. 124–26, no. 22, ill. (color) [French ed., "Centenaire de l'impressionnisme," Paris], comments that pentimenti and x-rays reveal that originally the man at the tiller held the rope in his right hand but that "by altering the direction of the rope Manet removed a cue to logical perspective and thereby further emphasized the flatness of the picture space".
Pierre Courthion. Manet. Paris, 1974, p. 54.
Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein. Édouard Manet, catalogue raisonné. Paris, 1975, vol. 1, pp. 6, 20, 24, 186–87, no. 223, ill.; vol. 2, p. 148, under nos. 400–401.
J. Kirk T. Varnedoe inGustave Caillebotte: A Retrospective Exhibition. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Houston, 1976, p. 122, fig. 1, describes this composition as a "partial precedent" for Caillebotte's "Canotiers" (Berhaut 1978, no. 75; private collection, Paris).
Theodore Reff. "Review of Rouart and Wildenstein 1975." Art Bulletin 58 (December 1976), p. 637, states that the two sketches reproduced by Rouart and Wildenstein [see Ref. 1975, nos. 400 and 401] are copies by another hand.
Bernard Dorival in "Ukiyo-e and European Painting." Dialogue in Art: Japan and the West. Ed. Chisaburoh F. Yamada. New York, 1976, p. 36, fig. 18 (color).
Anne Coffin Hanson. Manet and the Modern Tradition. New Haven, 1977, pp. 77, 165, 190, fig. 109.
Paul Abe Isaacs. "The Immobility of the Self in the Art of Edouard Manet: A Study with Special Emphasis on the Relationship of his Imagery to That of Gustave Flaubert and Stephane Mallarmé." PhD diss., Brown University, 1977, pp. 221, 480 n. 143.
Bernard Dorival inPèlerinage à Watteau. Exh. cat., Musée de la Monnaie. Paris, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 124–25, ill. p. 123, suggests a source for the female figure in Watteau's "Figures de différents caractères" (pl. 138), and, for the figure of Leenhof, in Watteau's "Le Printemps," known today only through an engraving by Etienne Brillon.
Michael Justin Wentworth Minneapolis Institute of Arts. James Tissot: Catalogue Raisonné of his Prints. Minneapolis, 1978, pp. 98, 231, under no. 20, fig. 20d, discusses it in relation to Tissot's etching of "The Thames" of 1876 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts).
Richard Shone. Manet. London, 1978, unpaginated, no. 28, colorpl. 28 and ill. on cover (color detail), states that the picture would be "inconceivable without the example of Japanese art" and that it evokes the "'floating world'" of Japanese prints.
Anne Distel. Hommage à Claude Monet (1840–1926). Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 1980, p. 111.
Diane Kelder. The Great Book of French Impressionism. New York, 1980, pp. 81–82, 100, 436, ill. (color).
Theodore Reff. Manet and Modern Paris. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1982, p. 271.
Raymond Cogniat and Michel Hoog. Manet. Paris, 1982, pp. 23, 27, 38, no. 26, colorpl. 26.
Deborah Ann Gribbon. "Edouard Manet: The Development of His Art Between 1868 and 1876." PhD diss., Harvard University, 1982, pp. 159–60, 162–73, 178, 185, 197–98, 209, 218, 226, 231, pl. 60, as "En Bateau"; discusses it as an example of Manet's use of abstraction and distillation.
Charles S. Moffett inManet, 1832–1883. Ed. Françoise Cachin and Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983, pp. 29, 33, 320, 356–59, 363, no. 140, ill. (color, overall and detail) [French ed., Paris], notes that the woman wears the same hat as Mme Monet in "On the Beach" (RW188) and "The Swallows" (RW190) and by Camille Monet in "The Monet Family in the Garden" (RW227, The Met 1976.201.14), but that she resembles neither painter's wife.
Françoise Cachin inManet, 1832–1883. Ed. Françoise Cachin and Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983, p. 436 [French ed., Paris].
Pierre Daix. La vie de peintre d'Édouard Manet. Paris, 1983, pp. 258, 268, 279, 281, fig. 35 (detail), states that the couple is the same as in "Argenteuil" (1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai).
Anne Coffin Hanson inManet, 1832–1883. Ed. Françoise Cachin and Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983, p. 23 [French ed., "Manet, 1832–1883," Paris, p. 23].
Michael Wilson. Manet at Work. Exh. cat., National Gallery. London, 1983, p. 40, writes that it is likely that it was painted, at least in part, outdoors.
Manet, 1832–1883. Ed. Françoise Cachin and Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983, p. 537 [French ed., Paris, p. 533], include it among the paintings Manet exhibited to the public in his studio at 4, rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, Paris, in spring 1876.
Charles F. Stuckey. "Manet Revised: Whodunit?" Art in America 71 (November 1983), p. 167.
Jean-Jacques Lévêque. Manet. Paris, 1983, pp. 126–27, ill. p. 125 (color), as "Couple sur le bateau à voiles" and "En bateau".
Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 40–41, ill. (color).
Bradley Collins. "Manet's 'In the Conservatory' and 'Chez le Pere Lathuille'." Art Journal 44 (Spring 1985), pp. 65–66, remarks on the figures' sharply divergent glances as serving the motif of detachment similarly found in "Argenteuil" and "In the Conservatory".
Siegfried Wichmann. Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art in the 19th and 20th Centuries. New York, 1985, p. 247, fig. 657 (cropped).
Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 56, 107, 117, 177, 257, 262 n. 9, colorpl. 60, mentions that this picture and Monet's "La Grenouillère" (The Met 29.100.112) were the only two "recreation pictures" to enter the Havemeyers' collection.
Kathleen Adler. Manet. Oxford, 1986, pp. 172–73, 176, 213, colorpl. 161, suggests that Camille Monet served as the model for this picture.
John House inThe Hidden Face of Manet: An Investigation of the Artist's Working Processes. Exh. cat., Courtauld Institute Galleries. [London?], 1986, pp. 13, 19 n. 35.
Guy Cogeval. From Courbet to Cézanne: A New 19th Century; Preview of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. Paris, 1986, p. 75, as "In the Boat".
H. Wayne Morgan, ed. An American Art Student in Paris: The Letters of Kenyon Cox, 1877–1882. Kent, Ohio, 1986, p. 20, cites Cox's review of the picture at the Salon of 1879.
Gary Tinterow et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 8, Modern Europe. New York, 1987, pp. 18–20, colorpl. 6.
Charles F. Stuckey in Charles F. Stuckey and William P. Scott. Berthe Morisot, Impressionist. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1987, p. 82, fig. 54, calls Morisot's "The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne (Summer Day)" (National Gallery, London) a "reprise" of this picture.
Kirk Varnedoe. Gustave Caillebotte. New Haven, 1987, p. 98, pl. 20a [rev. ed. of Varnedoe 1976].
Richard Wollheim. Painting as an Art: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1984, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Princeton, 1987, p. 151, fig. 115.
Robert L. Herbert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, 1988, pp. 152, 182, 236, 238, 245, 248, 277, 313 nn. 38–40, colorpl. 238, calls Morisot's "Summer's Day" (1879, National Gallery, London) a competitive reformulation of Manet's "Boating" and "Argenteuil" (1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai); notes that Rodolphe Leenhoff wears the uniform of members of the Cercle nautique and that the boat is an old-fashioned one like the one at left in "Argenteuil".
Nathalie Malterre. "Société et vie parisienne dans l'oeuvre de Manet." PhD diss., Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 152, 193, 195, 198–202, 204–5, 302, 304, 322; vol. 2, pl. 20a, compares the environment evoked in the painting to that in Guy de Maupassant's "Yvette" (1884).
T. A. Gronberg, ed. Manet: A Retrospective. New York, 1988, pp. 15–16, colorpl. 66.
Horst Keller. Edouard Manet. Munich, 1989, pp. 119, 174, pl. 95, as "Im Boot".
Juliet Wilson-Bareau. "L'année impressionniste de Manet: Argenteuil et Venise en 1874." Revue de l'art 86 (1989), pp. 29, 32, 34 n. 24, fig. 4, dates it 1874–75.
Françoise Cachin. Manet. [Paris], 1990, pp. 24, 116, 158, ill. (color), suggests that the woman was a professional model.
T. A. Gronberg. Manet: A Retrospective. New York, 1990, p. 15, colorpl. 66, notes that Manet began working on this in August 1874.
Martine Bacherich. Je regarde Manet. Paris, 1990, p. 120.
Norma Broude. "A World of Light: France and the International Impressionist Movement, 1860–1920." World Impressionism: The International Movement, 1860–1920. Ed. Norma Broude. New York, 1990, p. 28, colorpl. 26.
Robert Rosenblum. "Friedrichs from Russia: An Introduction." The Romantic Vision of Caspar David Friedrich: Paintings and Drawings from the U.S.S.R. Ed. Sabine Rewald. New York, 1990, pp. 12–13, fig. 13, compares it to Friedrich's "On the Sailboat" (State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad) of 1818–19.
Éric Darragon. Manet. Paris, 1991, pp. 260, 286, 288, 377, 381, colorpl. 204, publishes a caricature by Stop that originally appeared in Le journal amusant [see Stop 1879].
Juliet Wilson-Bareau. Manet by Himself, Correspondence & Conversation: Paintings, Pastels, Prints & Drawings. Boston, 1991, pp. 186, 311 no. 163, colorpl. 163, dates it 1874–76.
Peter H. Feist. "Der Impressionismus in Frankreich." Malerei des Impressionismus, 1860–1920. Ed. Ingo F. Walther. Vol. 1, Cologne, 1992, pp. 163, 221, ill. p. 138 (color), as "Die Bootspartie/En bateau".
Lesley Stevenson. Manet. New York, 1992, pp. 22, 125–26, 129, ill. pp. 124–25 (color), notes that the canvas is much larger than Monet's and Renoir's portable canvases, suggesting that it was painted in the studio; states that the models are the same as in the Tournai painting.
Lorenz Eitner. An Outline of 19th Century European Painting: From David Through Cézanne. New York, 1992, pp. 305, 307, fig. 280, states that it "has the look of a particularly careful performance, designed for exhibition".
Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. Ed. Susan Alyson Stein. 3rd ed. [1st ed. 1930, repr. 1961]. New York, 1993, pp. 225, 334 n. 325, p. 340 n. 400, comments that the Havemeyers saw this picture on their trip to Europe in 1889 at the Exposition Centennale des Beaux-Arts.
Susan Alyson Stein inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, pp. 210, 219.
Gary Tinterow inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 27, colorpl. 31.
Vivien Perutz. Édouard Manet. Lewisburg, Pa., 1993, pp. 164–66, 175, 220 n. 20, colorpl. 45, compares it to Manet's "On the Beach" (RW188; Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and to "Argenteuil" (RW221); suggests that the woman was added later; notes its dependence on James Tissot's "Young Lady in a Boat" (ca. 1870, private collection), which appeared in the Salon of 1870.
Nigel Blake and Francis Frascina in "Modern Practices of Art and Modernity." Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 1993, pp. 115, 118, pl. 106, compares it with Manet's "Argenteuil" (RW221), stating that both depict Rodolphe Leenhoff.
Gretchen Wold inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 356, no. A358, ill.
Manet by Manet. Ed. Yasuto Ota. Tokyo, 1993, pp. 66–67, ill. (color).
Anne Distel. Gustave Caillebotte, 1848–1894. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 1994, p. 116, under no. 23, fig. 2, cites this painting, which Caillebotte may have seen in 1876, as a compositional influence for both the placement and cropping of his "Partie de bateau" (Berhaut 1994, no. 121; private collection).
James H. Rubin. Manet's Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets. Cambridge, Mass., 1994, pp. 24, 80–81, fig. 51 (color), compares the flattening of the female figure in the foreground to that in Monet's paintings of a few years earlier, such as "On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt" (1868, Art Institute of Chicago); sees it as a disquisition on the connection in real life between alienation and aesthetics in modern leisure.
Janice Best. "The Chronotype and the Generation of Meaning." Criticism 36 (Spring 1994), p. 298, fig. 1.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 446, ill.
Hans Körner. Edouard Manet: Dandy, Flaneur, Maler. Munich, 1996, pp. 149, 151, 154, 175, colorpl. 121.
Beth Archer Brombert. Édouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat. Boston, 1996, pp. 361, 395–96, 408, compares it to "In the Conservatory" (RW289).
Alan Krell. Manet and the Painters of Contemporary Life. London, 1996, pp. 134, 138, 179, colorpl. 122, discusses the gaze of the man and woman, noting that her gaze runs along the surface of the canvas, accentuating the flatness and two-dimensionality of the picture.
Eliza E. Rathbone inImpressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party". Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 1996, pp. 28–30, 34, 41, colorpl. 27, compares it to Manet's "Argentueil" (RW221), noting that the pair in The Met's picture is a "couple of superior social station"; comments on the striking newness of the composition, which may explain Manet's five year wait before submitting it to the Salon of 1879; mentions that this work inspired Renoir's "Girl in a Boat" (private collection) of 1877.
Katherine Rothkopf. Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party'. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 1996, pp. 79–80.
Lisa Portnoy Stein. Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party'. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 1996, p. 242.
Jack Flam. "Looking into the Abyss: The Poetics of Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère." 12 Views of Manet's "Bar". Ed. Bradford R. Collins. Princeton, 1996, p. 179.
Colin B. Bailey in Colin B. Bailey. Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. New Haven, 1997, p. 130, identifies the woman as Suzanne Leenhoff, noting that the bonnet worn here is the same one she wore in "On the Beach" (RW188).
Gary Tinterow inLa collection Havemeyer: Quand l'Amérique découvrait l'impressionnisme. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 1997, p. 55, no. 20, ill. (color).
Sylvie Patin. "La collection Havemeyer." 48/14: La revue du Musée d'Orsay no. 5 (Fall 1997), p. 9.
Fred Licht. Manet. Milan, 1998, p. 62, fig. 38, dates it 1874–76.
Paul Hayes Tucker. The Impressionists at Argenteuil. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2000, pp. 26–27, 32, 36, 41 nn. 23, 34, p. 142, no. 40, ill. p. 143 (color), states that the skipper "furtively" touches his companion's foot with his own; calls the female figure's position "unladylike".
Jill Berk Jiminez inDictionary of Artists' Models. Ed. Jill Berk Jiminez and Joanna Banham. London, 2001, p. 166, associates this painting's female model with Camille Monet.
Carol Armstrong. Manet Manette. New Haven, 2002, pp. 203, 212, 218, 220–23, fig. 106.
Manuela B. Mena Marqués inManet en el Prado. Ed. Manuela B. Mena Marqués. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2003, pp. 21, 25, 296–99, 321, 372–73, 478, 484, no. 93, ill., colorpl. 93, fig. 139 (color detail), notes that the woman resembles Alice Lecouvé, the model Manet used for "Le Linge" (RW237; Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.).
Françoise Cachin inManet en el Prado. Ed. Manuela B. Mena Marqués. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2003, pp. 36, 378.
Gilles Néret. Edouard Manet, 1832–1883: Le premier des modernes. Cologne, 2003, p. 64, ill. (color), as "En Bateau".
Julia Rowland Myers. "J. Alden Weir's Essay on 'Modern Life': 'In the Park' of 1879." American Art Journal 34–35 (2003–4), pp. 173–74.
Mishoe Brennecke. "Double Début: Edouard Manet and 'The Execution of Maximilian' in New York and Boston, 1879-80." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 3 (Autumn 2004) [http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn04/296--double-debut-edouard-manet-and-the-execution-of-maximilian-in-new-york-and-boston-1879-80], notes that, despite making a splash at the Salon with this painting, Manet received no mention in American art journals and only one in a major New York newspaper.
Anne Distel inCézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, p. 149 n. 6 [French ed., "De Cézanne à Picasso: Chefs-d'oeuvre de la galerie Vollard," Paris, 2007, p. 161 n. 6].
Richard R. Brettell and Stephen F. Eisenman. Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum. Ed. Sara Campbell. Vol. 1, New Haven, 2006, p. 378, fig. 98a.
Gary Tinterow inThe Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 90–91, 230–31, no. 62, ill. (color and black and white) and fig. 13 (installation photo).
Juliet Wilson-Bareau inVenice: From Canaletto and Turner to Monet. Ed. Martin Schwander. Exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler. Basel, 2008, p. 148.
Karin Sagner. Gustave Caillebotte: Neue Perspektiven des Impressionismus. Munich, 2009, p. 165, fig. 86 (color).
Hans Körner and Manja Wilkens. Séraphine Louis, 1864–1942: Biographie / Werkverzeichnis, Biographie / Catalogue raisonné. Berlin, 2009, pp. 122–23, fig. 24 [2nd ed., 2015].
Anne Distel. Renoir. New York, 2010, p. 113, colorpl. 95.
Mathilde Arnoux et al., ed. Correspondance entre Henri Fantin-Latour et Otto Scholderer, 1858–1902. Paris, 2010, p. 210 n. 3.
James H. Rubin. Manet: Initial M, Hand and Eye. Paris, 2010, pp. 215, 295–98, 302, 353–55, 357, 361, 366, fig. 43 (color), discusses a sense of detachment, estrangement, and "emotional blankness" in the picture; remarks on the woman's resemblance to Manet's actress-friends Ellen Andrée and Jeanne Demarsy, but notes that any secure identification is difficult due to the figure's veil; identifies the object at far right as the male figure's rowing gloves.
Simon Kelly inManet, inventeur du Moderne. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2011, p. 63.
Stéphane Guégan inManet, inventeur du Moderne. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2011, pp. 211, 271.
Laurence Madeline. "C'était l'été 74. Manet face à Monet." 48/14: La revue du Musée d'Orsay no. 31 (Spring 2011), pp. 61–62, 63 n. 79, fig. 7 (color), discusses the picture in the context of Manet's "vampirization" of Monet's open-air painting techniques that summer.
MaryAnne Stevens inManet: Portraying Life. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. London, 2012, pp. 74, 176, 180, under no. 12, p. 185, under no. 25.
Sarah Lea inManet: Portraying Life. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. London, 2012, p. 174.
Jane Mayo Roos inPerspectives on Manet. Ed. Therese Dolan. Farnham, Surrey, 2012, pp. 89, 95 n. 53.
Robert Lethbridge inPerspectives on Manet. Ed. Therese Dolan. Farnham, Surrey, 2012, p. 102.
Stéphane Guégan inManet: Ritorno a Venezia. Ed. Stéphane Guégan. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ducale. Venice, 2013, p. 269.
Flavio Fergonzi inManet: Ritorno a Venezia. Ed. Stéphane Guégan. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ducale. Venice, 2013, fig. 76 (reproduction from "Emporium" [1907]).
Ed Lilley. "Manet and His London Critics Revisited." Burlington Magazine 156 (April 2014), p. 233 n. 16.
Willibald Sauerländer. Manet paints Monet: A Summer in Argenteuil. Los Angeles, 2014, pp. 42, 44–46, 49, 63, 74 n. 18, fig. 29 (color), sees it as a prime example of Manet's "vacation painting" mode and a "sharply emphatic statement about the polarity in the roles of the sexes in contemporary bourgeois society".
Colin B. Bailey. "The Floating Studio." New York Review of Books 62 (April 23, 2015), p. 54, contends that The Met's picture, rather than "Argenteuil" (1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai) appeared on exhibition at the Deschamps Galleries in London in 1876.
Mary Morton et al. in Mary Morton and George T. M. Shackelford. Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2015, pp. 207–8, 267 n. 4 (under Suburban Views), fig. 3 (color), note that The Met's picture may well have been the reference point for Caillebotte's "A Boating Party" (1877–78, private collection) and that it was probably intentional that Caillebotte placed his painting in the fourth impressionist exhibition of 1879, the same year that Manet's picture hung at the Salon.
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 441, no. 371, ill. pp. 377, 441 (color).
Michael Marrinan. Gustave Caillebotte: Painting the Paris of Naturalism, 1872–1887. Los Angeles, 2016, p. 168, fig. 82.
Ségolène Le Men and Sylvain Amic inScènes de la vie impressionniste: Manet, Renoir, Monet, Morisot . . . Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen. Paris, 2016, p. 34.
Edouard Manet. Ed. Gerhard Finckh. Exh. cat., Von der Heydt-Museum. Wuppertal, 2017, pp. 118, 307, as "Im Boot".
Pierre Bourdieu. Manet: A Symbolic Revolution. Cambridge, 2017, pp. 207, 348, 476, colorpl. 29, mistakenly identifies Manet's brother-in-law in this painting as Ferdinand (rather than Rodolphe) Leenhoff.
Mary Morton inRenoir and Friends: Luncheon of the Boating Party. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 2017, pp. 72–73, discusses the picture in terms of the "erotics of boating".
David Pullins. Manet: Three Paintings from the Norton Simon Museum. Exh. cat., Frick Collection. New York, 2019, p. 79 n. 48, compares the pair of figures to that in "In the Conservatory" (1878/79, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin).
Manet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years. Ed. Scott Allan, Emily A. Beeny, and Gloria Groom. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Los Angeles, 2019, p. 11, no. 3, ill. p. 186 (color).
Scott Allan inManet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years. Ed. Scott Allan, Emily A. Beeny, and Gloria Groom. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Los Angeles, 2019, pp. 14, 22–24, 274–75, no. 3, ill. (color, overall and detail), dates it 1874–75; discusses its appearance at the Salon of 1879 and its contrasts with "In the Conservatory" there; calls Manet's choice to exhibit the painting five years after its completion a gambit related to his artistic rivalry with Caillebotte, who showed his own boating scenes at the Impressionist exhibition one month prior; compares the picture to Emile Renouf's "A Helping Hand" (1881, private collection), which was shown at the following Salon possibly as a response to The Met's painting; compares the male sitter's pose to that of the Belvedere Torso.
Gloria Groom inManet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years. Ed. Scott Allan, Emily A. Beeny, and Gloria Groom. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Los Angeles, 2019, p. 73.
Emily A. Beeny inManet and Modern Beauty: The Artist's Last Years. Ed. Scott Allan, Emily A. Beeny, and Gloria Groom. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Los Angeles, 2019, p. 276.
Paloma Alarcó. The Impressionists and Photography. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2019, ill. p. 266 (in installation photograph of Paris 1884).
Laura D. Corey and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. "Visions of Collecting." Making The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 141, 265 n. 55.
Tyler E. Ostergaard. "Review of 'Manet and Modern Beauty'." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 19 (Spring 2020) [https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2020.19.1.15].
Alice Gudera inManet and Astruc: Friendship and Inspiration. Ed. Dorothee Hansen. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bremen. Madrid, 2021, pp. 75, 79 n. 74.
Stephan Wolohojian and Ashley E. Dunn. Manet/Degas. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. New York, 2023, p. 298, colorpl. 114.
Samuel Rodary and Haley S. Pierce in Stephan Wolohojian and Ashley E. Dunn. Manet/Degas. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. New York, 2023, p. 284.
Manet/Degas. Ed. Laurence des Cars, Stéphane Guégan, and Isolde Pludermacher. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2023, p. 258, colorpl. 88.
Stéphane Guégan inManet/Degas. Ed. Laurence des Cars, Stéphane Guégan, and Isolde Pludermacher. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2023, p. 122.
Samuel Rodary inManet/Degas. Ed. Laurence des Cars, Stéphane Guégan, and Isolde Pludermacher. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2023, p. 243.
Colin B. Bailey. "A New Language of Modern Art." New York Review of Books (December 21, 2023) [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/12/21/a-new-language-of-modern-art-manet-degas].
Manet made a study after the figure of the woman in The Met’s painting that he enclosed with an undated letter (JPL Fine Arts, London). In an email of December 14, 2019, the Manet scholar Juliet Wilson-Bareau connected this drawing to the one reproduced in the illustrated catalogue for the Salon of 1879. Both a drawing after the London drawing reproduced in Rouart and Wildenstein 1975, vol. 2, no. 400, and another similar drawing (reproduced in Rouart and Wildenstein 1975, vol. 2, no. 401 and in Mathey 1961, no. 135) have been rejected by Reff (1976) as being by another hand.
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