EdouardManet, Portrait of Madame Claus, 1868
The Ashmolean Museum is mounting a campaign to save Edouard Manet’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, 1868, for the nation. Onthe advice of the Reviewing Committee, the Culture Minister Ed Vaizey hasextended the temporary export bar on the painting untilAugust to give the Ashmolean time in which to raise the funds in order toacquire the painting. The painting has been sold toa foreign buyer for £28.35 million but, under a privatetreaty sale, with tax remission it can be purchased by an approved UKpublic collection at a greatly reduced price. The Ashmolean isapproaching public funding bodies, trusts and private individuals, andlaunching a public campaign to raise the required £7.83xmillion.
Dr Christopher Brown CBE, Director of the Ashmolean, said, “Thisis one of the most important pictures of the 19th century which has been inthis country since its sale following the artist’s death. The painting is available to public bodies approved by theTreasury at 25% of its market value. The £7.83 million, though a substantial sum to be found, is a mere fraction ofthe picture’s actual worth and it would therefore be anenormous disappointment if it could not be saved for the nation. The picture’s significance is reflected in its history: it was hugely admiredand then bought by another great artist, John Singer Sargent, in 1884. Its purchase would, at a stroke, transform the Ashmolean’srepresentation of Impressionist painting.”
Manet was one of the greatest painters of the 19th century.During his lifetime he was controversial, but his work, though it shocked thepublic, was hugely admired by artists. His reputation grew rapidly in the 20thcentury and consequently his best works were acquired by major museums. Thereare now remarkably few Manets in private collections, almost all in France, andthere are only a handful of important pictures byManet in the United Kingdom – in the National Gallery and the Courtauld Institute in London,as well as other works in Cardiff, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Adding to theMuseum’s permanent collections and the Pissarro Family Collection, the acquisition of this masterpiece would make the Ashmolean aworld-leading centre for the study of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work.
The portrait is a preparatory study for Le Balcon (1868–9) now in the Musée d’Orsay - one of the key images of theImpressionist movement. Initially inspired by the sight of people on a balcony,during a summer spent in Boulogne-sur-Mer with his family in 1868, Le Balcon famously draws on Goya’s Majas on a Balcony painted around 1810.It is also an important example of Manet’s work from the late 1860s onwardswhen he began to focus his attention on his family and close friends. The portrait’s subject is Fanny Claus (1846–77), the closest friendof Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff. A concert violinist and member of the first all-women stringquartet, Fanny was one of Manet’s favourite sitters and a member of aclose-knit group of friends who also provided the artist with models. Shemarried the artist Pierre Prins (1838–1913), another friend of Manet’s, in 1869,but died of tuberculosis just eight years later at the age of 30.
EdouardManet, Le Balcon, 1868-9
If acquired by the Ashmolean the Portrait of Mademoiselle Clauswill be shown at a number of museums in the UK in a specialexhibition. Having previously been exhibited only once since it waspainted, this will be a great revelationboth to the public and to Manet scholars. As a first sketch, the portrait has aspontaneous quality and a vibrant palette lessevident in Le Balcon which was reworked a number of times by the artist as he refinedthe composition in his studio. Mademoiselle Claus reveals fascinating newinformation about the working methods of Edouard Manet, one of the greatestmasters of modern art.
EdouardManet, Self-Portrait With Palette, 1879
NOTE:
This article on the ArtDaily.org website caught my eye this morning, mostly because it pairedthe names of Edouard Manet, one ofmy favorite painters, with Oxford’s esteemed AshmoleanMuseum. However, when I read it and learned about the museum’s “campaign to save Edouard Manet’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, 1868, for the nation”, it made meangry.
The general publicusually pays very little attention to Stateexpropriation of private property under the sanitized,clinical, and almost noble-sounding sobriquet “eminent domain.” Eminent domainconcerns are mostly the province of its unfortunate victims, their lawyers andthe "compulsory takers'" lawyers. (By the way, anyone with any significantleasehold on real property should read their legal documents carefully on thispoint before signing.)
I don’t wish to overelaborate, spin this out, or ruin anyone’s day, but itis one thing (albeit a complicated one) if the State feels the desire and expresses the intention to putan essential road through privately-owned real estate by engaging in coerced taking. But it is quite another when government abrogates aprivate, legal sale of personal property by a citizen (or otherwise legally authorizedperson) for any reason, let alone for such attenuatedand specious ones as we find here.
I suppose I could understand – slightly – if the artwork inquestion were British, rather than French, or if it had been the property of ahistorically significant British collector, rather than a famous Americanpainter who happened to purchase the work in Great Britain where he was then resident.Essentially, this painting’sheritage is as foreign to Britain as my own.
I assume that the “private treaty sale,with tax remission” aspect of this horrendous exercise ofState power is intended to lessen the ultimate tax consequences for theabused seller and restore some of his or her lost profit margin. Possiblyother emoluments (invitations to museumopenings, blue ribbons and rosettes, fancy hors d'oeuvres) are also beingoffered in partial, paltry recompense. In the end, however, the State will do whatthe State will do.
Regularly reading about the totallyscrewed-up financial and social state of the United Kingdom today, I find it absolutelyappalling that Prime Minister Cameron's government and the grabby Ashmoleandirector don’t feel that their priorities aretotally misplaced. (Please see today's relevant Link Of The Day on this subject.) I mean, it’s a lovely painting with an interesting history andconnection to another famous Manet, but Who Cares? The painting belongs to its owners, not to the British government or people(who I hope would be in general agreement with that proposition).
EdouardManet, Portrait of Madame Claus (detail), 1868
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