The rabbit
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The hare (French: La lièvre ) is the title of a painting by the French painter Édouard Manet . The 97.5 × 61 cmpicture, paintedin oil on canvas, shows a dead hare as a hunting trophy on a house wall. The work, which belongs to a series of four almost equally large still lifes , was created in 1881 during a spa stay in Versailles , when Manet was already marked by serious illness. The painting belongs to the collection of the National Museum Cardiff in Cardiff .
Image description
A dead hare is shown hanging on a house wall as a hunting trophy . The portrait, executed in portrait format, shows the outstretched hare roughly life-size in the center. He is suspended from a nail on the outside of a window frame with his hind legs tied together. Despite a fleeting brushstroke, details such as the structure of the gray-brown fur, the white tail (the flower ) and the head with the open eyes, the long ears and the whiskers can be recognized. The left half of the image is a closed window that is cut off from the edges of the image. The dark brown wooden strips of the right and lower frame are clearly visible, and there are two diagonal struts in the lower area and two parallel struts above in the middle. Behind the window glass, the drapery of a drawn curtain or a curtain is indicated in different shades of gray. In the right half of the picture a climbing plant climbs a sand-colored house wall. Although isolated green leaves can be seen, the vegetation is partially reproduced only with a brush stroke in an abstract zigzag pattern. In this area in particular, the picture looks sketchily unfinished, like an "ébauche". The painting is not signed or dated.
Garden pictures from Versailles
Manet spent several months in Versailles in 1881, where he was taking a cure. There he sought relief from the consequences of a syphilis disease from which he had suffered since the late 1870s. In particular, he had pain in his left leg, which made it difficult to walk, but it also made it difficult for him to stand at the easel for long periods of time. In Versailles he lived in a house at 20 avenue de Villeneuve – l'Étang from the end of June to October. His original idea of painting while staying in the palace gardens of Versailles probably failed because of his health and the unsteady weather. In a letter to his friend Stéphane Mallarmé dated July 30, 1881, he wrote: “I have not been happy with my health since I've been in Versailles.” He reported to his painter colleague Eva Gonzalès : “Like you, we unfortunately had terrible weather to suffer. I think it's been raining here for a month and a half. So when I came here to study in the park designed by Lenôtre, I had to be content with simply painting my garden, which is the most hideous of all gardens. Some still lifes, and that's all I'll bring. "
One of the still lifes created in Versailles is the painting The Hare . It is part of a series of four still lifes, each consisting of two hunting and two plant motifs. In addition to The Hare, Manet painted another animal hanging on a nail with the Dead Eagle Owl ( Foundation EG Bührle Collection , Zurich). In both pictures, the nature morte , the subject of transience in still life painting, is made clear by the motif. While the dead eagle owl is more clearly executed based on the trompe l'œil painting, the painting of The Hare remains “virtuoso impressionistic” and is based on models such as Frans Hals and Diego Velázquez in the brushstroke . The other two pictures in the series are the garden pictures bindweed and nasturtium ( McNay Art Museum , San Antonio) and Gartenecke (private collection), both of which are in a fleeting style. Only the painting Dead Eagle Owl was signed by Manet - a sign that he thought this painting was completed.
As early as 1866 Manet created the painting The Rabbit ( Musée Angladon , Avignon). The picture, based on a model by Jean Siméon Chardin , has motifs similar to The Hare , but differs significantly in its execution. While the rabbit still in the style of realism was executed, shows the hare the free brushwork of Manet's later work.
Édouard Manet:
Dead Eagle Owl
1881
Édouard Manet:
bindweed and nasturtium
1881
Édouard Manet:
Garden corner
1881
Édouard Manet:
The Rabbit
1866
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Provenance
The painting The Hare was in his possession until Manet's death. At the estate auction on February 4 and 5, 1884 in the Hôtel Drouot , Manet's friend Emmanuel Chabrier bought the painting for 310 francs . After his death, the picture was put up for auction again at the Drouot auction house and was acquired on March 26, 1896 for 1000 francs by the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel . He sold the work on October 31, 1896 to the art collector WR Green. It is unclear whether the painting was subsequently in the possession of the art collector Alphonse Kann . The politician and writer Denys Cochin is known as the next owner . In 1917, the painting finally moved to the art dealer Bernheim-Jeune in the possession of the Welsh art collector Gwendoline Davies . She bequeathed the painting to the National Museum Cardiff, whose collection it has been part of since 1952.
literature
- Edouard Manet: Letters . German translation by Hans Graber. Benno Schwabe Verlag, Basel 1933.
- Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein : Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné . Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris / Lausanne 1975.
- Peter Hughes, Penny Stamp: French Art from the Davies Legacy . National Museum of Wales, Cardiff 1982, ISBN 0-7200-0237-0 .
- George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings . Harry N. Abrams, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8109-4391-3 .
- Ina Conzen: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2002, ISBN 3-7757-1201-1 .
- Gerhard Finckh (ed.): Edouard Manet . From the Heydt Museum, Wuppertal 2017, ISBN 978-3-89202-098-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ German title for example in Gerhard Finckh : Edouard Manet. 2017, p. 193.
- ^ French title La lièvre according to the catalog raisonné by Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné. Volume 1, 1975, p. 143, No. 376.
- ^ Ina Conzen: Edouard Manet and the Impressionists. 2002, p. 151.
- ^ Edouard Manet: Letters. 1933, p. 105.
- ^ Edouard Manet: Letters. 1933, p. 106.
- ↑ a b Peter Hughes, Penny stamp: French art from the Davies legacy. 1982, p. 28.
- ↑ George Mauner: Manet - the still life paintings. 2000, p. 175.