Méry Laurent with a black hat
Édouard Manet
1882
56 × 47 cm
Oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts , Dijon
Méry Laurent with a black hat also Méry Laurent with a large hat ( French Méry Laurent au chapeau noir or Méry Laurent au grand chapeau ) is a pastel portrait on canvas by the French painter Édouard Manet , created in 1882 . The chest piece shows the courtesan Méry Laurent, who is a friend of Manet, in a fashionable look. The 56 × 47 cm picture is one of a series of portraits that Manet created of his girlfriend in the last years of his life. It is now in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon .
Image description
The picture shows the portrait of Manet's friend Méry Laurent with her body turned to the left as the chest piece. She wears a dress or coat, the dark surface of which has a silky sheen. The color changes between dark blue and black. A voluminous bow made of the same material is tied in front of the chest. A ruffle-like , tight-fitting stand-up collar extends to the chin. The contrast between dark clothing and light complexion becomes particularly clear here. With a thin layer of chalk, Manet has traced Méry Laurent's face with white make-up. With a light pink shade, there are only small color gradations on the cheek and chin. On the other hand, the vermilion with which Manet emphasized the lip is strong and the bright turquoise of the eyes gives the face another color accent. Her left ear is half covered by her golden blonde hair that peeks out from under her wide hat. The black hat has a velvety brim that protrudes far above the face. On the hat there is an elaborate headdress with yellow, blue and pink color elements. The background is kept almost monochrome in a blue-gray. The light primer of the canvas can be seen in the lower area and along the edges. The picture is signed and dated right next to the shoulder with “Manet 1882”.
Manet's portraits of Méry Laurent
Méry Laurent, originally from Nancy, was actually Anne-Rose Louviot and was a well-known courtesan of her time who counted numerous lovers among her admirers. These included the wealthy Dr. Thomas Evans, former dentist for the imperial family Napoléon III. and writers like Stéphane Mallarmé . Manet first met her in 1876 when she visited an exhibition of his works in the painter's studio. There are a number of affectionate letters from Manet to Méry Laurent, but there is no evidence of an intimate relationship between the two.
In the last years of his life, Méry Laurent was one of Manet's favorite models. In addition to the oil painting Autumn ( Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy ), in which she wears clothes very similar to those in Méry Laurent with a black hat , Manet mainly created a series of pastel paintings by Méry Laurent. These include Méry Laurent with a dog ( Pushkin Museum ), Méry Laurent with a veil (private collection), Méry Laurent with otter fur (private collection), Méry Laurent with a hat decorated with flowers ( Hiroshima Museum of Art ) or Mery Laurent with a small hat ( Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute ). In these pictures, the lavish wardrobe of the portrayed always plays an important role. In Méry Laurent with a hat adorned with flowers, for example, there is again a headgear with lavish feather decoration and in Méry Laurent with a little dog it is again the silky, shiny surface of the dress that interests Manet.
He had a lot of pleasure showing the most elegant ladies of Parisian society in his pictures and there are also parallels in his portraits of other women to the picture of Méry Laurent with a black hat . For example, in Jeanne Martin with a hat adorned with roses ( Menard Art Museum ), an astonishingly similar item of clothing can be seen as in Méry Laurent with a black hat , and Jeanne Martin's hat is also strikingly large, with roses as decoration this time. In addition, there is also the strong contrast between dark clothing and very light complexion in this picture. This white complexion is also shown in the picture Die Wienerin, Portrait Irma Brunner ( Musée d'Orsay ). Even if the sitter in this picture wears a pink dress, the parallels to Méry Laurent with a black hat are more than clear. The treatment of the complexion and the highlighting of the lips and eyes are very similar. Manet achieves the contrast between white and black in this picture with the hat pulled down behind the sitter, in front of which the nose is clearly visible.
The art historian Françoise Cachin commented on Manet's pastel pictures with portraits of women: “In contrast to Degas' pastel portraits ... Manet's pastels show no attempt at a psychological interpretation, no curiosity about the personality of the portrayed or a character trait in their face. Manet painted his visitors in pastel like flowers, paying attention to their elegance and refinement: for him they were first and foremost Parisians ”.
Édouard Manet:
Autumn , 1881
Édouard Manet:
Méry Laurent with a hat decorated with flowers , 1882
Édouard Manet:
Méry Laurent with dog , 1882
Édouard Manet:
Jeanne Martin with a hat adorned with roses , 1881
Édouard Manet:
The Viennese, portrait Irma Brunner , 1880
Provenance
The picture, created a few months before the painter's death, was shown in 1884 in the posthumous Manet memorial exhibition at the École nationale des beaux-arts with the title Portrait . Doctor Albert Robin, who is friends with Manet and Méry Laurent, is the lender of the picture . Robin compiled a number of Manet's works, including such well-known paintings as Nana , which is now in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . While he parted with some of his paintings during his lifetime, he bequeathed Méry Laurent with a black hat, along with other works by Manet and other artists, to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in his hometown of Dijon, in whose collection it has been on display since 1930. The pastel picture was exhibited in 1932 on the occasion of Manet's hundredth birthday in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and is no longer loaned due to its sensitive condition.
literature
- Blandine Chavanne: Méry Laurent, Manet, Mallarmé et les autres… . Art Lys Editions, Versailles 2005, ISBN 2-85495-221-9 .
- Jeanne Faton (ed.): Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon . L'Estampille, L'Objet d'Art Thématique n ° 2. Éditions Faton, Dijon 2013, ISSN 0998-8041 .
- Paul Jamot: Manet . Exhibition catalog, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris 1932.
- Sandra Orienti: Edouard Manet . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-548-36050-5 .
- Françoise Cachin , Charles S. Moffett and Juliet Wilson-Bareau : Manet: 1832-1883 . Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, German edition: Frölich and Kaufmann, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88725-092-3 .
- Emmanuel Starcky (ed.), Sophie Jugie (ed.): L'art des collections, bicentenaire du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, du siècle des Lumieres à l'aube du nouveau millénaire . Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon 2000, ISBN 2-911404-62-9 .
- Adolphe Tabarant : Manet, histoire catalographique . Ed. Montaigne, Paris 1931.
- Barbara Wittmann: Giving faces: Édouard Manet and the poetics of the portrait . Fink, Paderborn and Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7705-4005-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The title Méry Laurent with a black hat can be found in Musées Nationaux Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (ed.): Manet , p. 489, as Méry Laurent with a large hat in Orienti: Edouard Manet , vol. II, P. 76 titled. The French names come from Jeanne Faton (ed.): Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon p. 60.
- ↑ Barbara Wittmann: Giving Faces: Édouard Manet and the Poetics of Portraits , p. 232.
- ^ Françoise Cachin: Die Wienerin, portrait of Irma Brunner in Musées Nationaux Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (ed.): Manet , p. 493.
- ^ Adolphe Tabarant: Manet, histoire catalographique . P. 497
- ↑ Blandine Chavanne: Méry Laurent, Manet, Mallarmé et les autres , p. 43.
- ^ Paul Jamot: Manet , p. 75
- ^ " Méry Laurent with a black hat - too fragile for transport" in Musées Nationaux Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (ed.): Manet , p. 493.