A smaller version of Mane’s "Breakfast on the Grass" is not a copy, but a preparatory study

LONDON. Courtauld Gallery restorers in London believe their version of Le déjeuner sur l’Herbe by Édouard Manet is not just a copy of a painting from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and her preparatory phase. This new theory contradicts the opinion of John House, a British expert, who expressed it shortly before his death in 2012. House was convinced that Curto’s version was “an exact copy made after the original was completed,” perhaps even several years later. It was as a late copy of the picture from Curto that was exhibited at the 2013 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Breakfast on the Grass from Courto Gallery

Karen Serres, curator of the painting department of the Courto Gallery, on the contrary, believes that their version is part of a long process of preparation for writing a basic picture, and not a late alteration. The painting depicts three sitters: model Quiz Möran, who posed naked, one of the artist’s brothers (Gustave or Eugene), and Manet’s half-brother, Dutch sculptor Ferdinand Leenhoff, who is shown in a hat. The Paris Salon of 1863 refused to exhibit a large version of Breakfast on the Grass, which caused a major scandal.

A version from Curto’s gallery, which measures 90x117 cm, was donated by Edward to a friend, Hippolytus Lejon, whose family sold the painting in 1924, four years later, to British collector Samuel Courtauld for 10,000 pounds. The large version, which has a size of 207x 265 cm and was completed in 1863, was transferred to the Louvre in 1906, and later to the Museum d’Orsay.

For the first time, the painting from Curto was restored in 1890, when the artists Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis removed the old varnish, in 1952 the surface of the painting was re-cleaned of dirt, and in 1976 the painting was again varnished. In 2016, Maureen Cross, Curto’s restorer, removed the varnish and examined the painting using X-ray fluorescence scanning, which helps to identify pigments, and using a multispectral infrared reflectogram, a non-invasive method that allows you to look under all layers of paint. So on the canvas was discovered the original, different from the final, drawing of a woman and Lienhof cap. At the same time, the painting, which is located in Paris, has no pentimento (painted parts) and is distinguished by a more uniform processing of paint, which suggests that this is the final version.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru