Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Study for "Déjeuner sur l'herbe"
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
This work is a version of Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe, the startling depiction of a picnic scene with two nearly naked women in the company of fully clothed men that became the artist’s first succès de scandale in 1863. The painting draws on his study of famed Italian Renaissance artworks, yet reframes those references into an entirely new style and context. Rejected by the official French Salon in 1863, it was hung instead at the Salon des Refusés, where it won him immediate notoriety. The broad strokes and seemingly quick application of paint in the version he exhibited belie the fact that the artist worked on the composition for a good year before showing it. This work may have been part of that preparatory process.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
