Marine, temps d'orage

Marine, temps d'orage
Édouard Manet , around 1864–1868
55 × 72.5 cm
oil on canvas
National Museum of Western Art , Tokyo

Marine, temps d'orage is the French title of a painting by Édouard Manet . The German picture titles vary between seascape, during a thunderstorm , two sailing boats on stormy seas , seascape with sailing ships and seascape . The picture, created around 1864–1868, is painted in oil on canvas and has a height of 55 cm and a width of 72.5 cm. It shows two sailing boats on the open sea with dark skies and is one of a series of seascapes that Manet created on the French Channel coast. The picture has been considered lost since the Second World War before it was discovered in 2014 in the Salzburg house of Cornelius Gurlitt . In 2019, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo acquired the painting.

Image description

The painting shows two sailing ships on the open sea. The two ships are some distance away from the horizon line. The sea, painted with virtuoso brushwork in various shades of green, takes up more than half of the picture. A yellowish sky is painted over it, which is largely covered by gray clouds. Directly behind the ships, these clouds reach the surface of the water, which can give the impression of rain. The French title Marine, temps d'orage speaks of a storm and finds the German title Seestück, an obvious equivalent in thunderstorms , but neither a characteristic lightning bolt nor special wave or cloud formations suggest an extreme weather situation.

The two sailing ships are roughly in the middle of the picture. The boat on the left can be seen from the side. It has lighter sails and is steering towards the left edge of the image. The right boat is shown at an angle from the rear. It steers to the right towards the horizon. Its high mast clearly towers above the other boat and its rigging has more sails than can be seen on the smaller boat on the left. It is unclear from which position the painter is looking at the sea. He could be standing on the coast, looking out of a window, or looking across the water from another ship to the two ships. The picture is signed "Manet" lower right.

Manet's Seascapes - dating of the painting

Manet had a special relationship with seafaring. Before he finally decided on an artistic career, he initially aimed for a career as a naval officer and in 1848 set out on a six-month voyage to Brazil on the training ship Le Havre et Guadeloupe . During the long time on board the ship, he had ample opportunity to study the sea in different light and weather conditions. He not only knew the ship he was on, but had also observed numerous other sailing ships. In a series of letters to his family, Manet reported on the experiences of this sea voyage.

The oldest known painting by Manet, in which he took up the theme of seafaring, dates back to 1864. The painting Naval Battle between the Kearsage and the Alabama from that year shows an event from the American Civil War that took place off the French coast. Manet was not one of the eyewitnesses of this battle, but created the painting in his Paris studio based on press reports and illustrations. It was not until a few weeks later that he traveled to the Channel coast and stayed in Boulogne-sur-Mer during the summer holidays . A second stay in Boulogne is documented for the year 1868. During these holidays he made several sketches and watercolors, which later served as templates for some paintings with sea motifs in the studio. In Manet's sketchbook from 1868, in particular, there are a number of pencil drawings of sailing ships that are similar to those in the painting Marine, temps d'orage and could be preparatory work for the painting.

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Étude d'un voilier , 1868,
  Louvre

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Deux voiliers en mer , 1868,
  Louvre

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Deux voiliers en mer , 1868,
  Louvre

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Croquis d'un voilier , 1868,
  private collection

Art historians came to different assessments when it came to the timing of Manet's watercolors and paintings with marine motifs. On the occasion of the exhibition Manet and the Sea , which was shown in Chicago, Philadelphia and Amsterdam from 2003 to 2004, a detailed examination of Manet's seascapes took place for the first time, in which some works were given a new chronological assignment. In the catalog for this exhibition, Wilson-Bareau / Degener associated the painting Marine, temps d'orage with other sea paintings from the years 1864–1868 due to stylistic comparisons, while various authors had previously dated the painting to the early 1870s.

The painting A steamer leaves Boulogne ( Art Institute of Chicago ) from 1864 shows, like Marine, temps d'orage, a horizon line drawn far upwards. In this picture, the various boats are not placed on the horizon alone, but are distributed over large areas of the water. This is different in the painting Sailing Ships on the Sea ( Cleveland Museum of Art ), dated 1864–1868 , in which the painter positioned the majority of the ships near the horizon. In this picture there is also a horizon line drawn far upwards and the representation of the waves in the foreground resembles those in Marine, temps d'orage . The painting Sailing Ships and Seagulls (private collection), which shows a similar selection of motifs and colors, also falls during this period . Another work by Manet also shows the reduction to just two sailing boats. The painting Two Fishing Boats (private collection) from around 1868 shows, like Marine, temps d'orage, two sailing boats on the open sea.

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  A steamer leaves Boulogne , 1864,
  Art Institute of Chicago

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Sailing Ships at Sea , 1864–1868,
  Cleveland Museum of Art

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Sailing Ships and Seagulls , around 1864–1868,
  private collection

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Two fishing boats ,
  around 1868,
  private collection

Provenance

The painting Marine, temps d'orage was one of the works by Manet that were in the artist's studio after his death in 1883 and were inventoried by his godchild Léon Leenhoff . At Manet's estate auction on February 4 and 5, 1884 at the Hôtel Drouot auction house , it was auctioned under the name Temps d'orange, marine as number 80. Léon Leenhoff bought the picture for his mother Suzanne Manet , the painter's widow, for 400 francs . After that, the picture appeared in the collection of Charles Deudon , who was one of the earliest patrons of Impressionist painters. The only public presentation of the picture took place in Prague in 1923 when it was part of the exhibition Výstava Francouzského Umení XIX. a XX. Století could be seen in the Obecní dům parish hall . Before the Second World War, the painting was acquired by the Japanese Matsukata Kōjirō , who had brought together an important collection of 19th century French painting in Europe, the core of which was later transferred to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo as a foundation . Numerous pictures in his collection were in France when the Second World War broke out and were later confiscated as enemy property. The whereabouts of the painting Marine, temps d'orage remained unclear for several decades. In 2014 the picture appeared together with other works of art in Cornelius Gurlitt's house in Salzburg. His father, Hildebrand Gurlitt , probably came into possession of the painting in France during the Second World War. The exact circumstances of the acquisition by Hildebrand Gurlitt are unclear. The picture is one of the works that Cornelius Gurlitt bequeathed to the Kunstmuseum Bern . After reviewing ownership, the 2019 Marine Museum decided to sell temps d'orage to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo for $ 4 million. The proceeds are used to offset the costs incurred by the Kunstmuseum Bern in accepting the Gurlitt collection.

literature

• Juliet Wilson-Bareau , David Degener: Manet and the Sea : Exhibition Catalog Chicago, Philadelphia, Amsterdam, Yale University Press, New Haven 2003, ISBN 0-300-10164-3 .
• Françoise Cachin : Manet . DuMont, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2791-9 .
• Edouard Manet: Letters . German translation by Hans Graber, Benno Schwabe Verlag, Basel 1933.
• Sandra Orienti: Edouard Manet, catalog raisonné . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-548-36050-5 .
• Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein : Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné . Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris and Lausanne 1975.
• Adolphe Tabarant : Manet et ses oeuvres . Gallimard, Paris 1947.

Individual evidence

1. ^ French title in Adolphe Tabarant: Manet et ses oeuvres , p. 218 or in Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné , p. 172.
2. ^ The title Seascape, in case of a thunderstorm according to Françoise Cachin: Manet p. 152.
3. ↑ The term Two Sailing Boats on Stormy Seas can be found in Sandra Orienti's catalog raisonné, p. 88.
4. ↑ The Süddeutsche Zeitung called the title Seascape with Sailing Ships . See article Salzburg Depot by Cornelius Gurlitt - These works are also included from May 9, 2014 .
5. ↑ The picture is listed under the title Seestück in the directory of the Gurlitt Collection at the Kunstmuseum Bern . See picture description on www.kunstmuseumbern.ch .
6. ↑ See in detail on this Edouard Manet: Briefe .
7. ↑ See Juliet Wilson-Bareau, David Degener: Manet and the Sea . Other authors have in the past already dated the painting Ship 's Deck, estimated by Wilson-Bareau / Degener to be around 1868 , to 1858 or earlier. See Sandra Orienti: Edouard Manet, catalog raisonné , p. 14.
8. ↑ Juliet Wilson-Bareau, David Degener: Manet and the Sea , p. 70.Sandra Orienti dates the picture to 1873, see Sandra Orienti: Edouard Manet, catalog raisonné , p. 88. Rouart / Wildenstein assume that the picture was in Berck in 1873 originated, see Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné , p. 172.
9. ^ Julius Meier-Graefe: Edouard Manet , p. 218.
10. ^ Adolphe Tabarant: Manet et ses oeuvres. , P. 218.
11. ↑ Kunstmuseum Bern sells Manet from the Gurlitt collection , SRF report from November 8, 2019
12. ↑ Ingeborg Ruthe: Kunstmuseum Bern sells Manet from Gurlitt heritage , article in the Berliner Zeitung of November 8, 2019