Exkurssus:
After the first exhibition

Auction 1875 — Victor Chocquet — Édouard Manet

Impact of the first exhibition
Auction 24 March 1875 at the Hôtel Drouot

After the Impressionists' first exhibition was not so successful, the painters Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Berthe Morisot organised an auction of their paintings in 1875. The planned attempt in March 1875 with a total of 73 works was intended to help the painter friends' very poor financial situation a little. Berthe Morisot took part out of solidarity, as she herself was not in financial difficulties.

The event at the Hôtel Drouot auction house turned into a scandal of unprecedented proportions. This was probably fuelled by a newspaper report in which the then powerful art critic Albert Wolff was quoted as saying: "... The impression achieved by the Impressionists is that of a cat walking around on the piano keys or a monkey that has taken possession of a colour box!" (1875 in Le Figaro)
The hall was filled with a jeering crowd that shouted down every auction until the auctioneer had to call the police. The prices realised were correspondingly low, between 200 and 500 francs.

Examples from the auction:

Berthe Morisot - La lecture
1873 - 46 x 72 cm - Oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art >
This painting "La lecture" was shown at the first exhibition in 1874: No. 105

Berthe Morisot - Intérieur
1872 - 60 x 73 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Berthe Morisot - La chasse aux papillons
1874 - 46 x 56 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Le grand vent
1872 - 27 x 42 cm - Oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam-Museum, Cambridge >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Le pêcheur à la ligne
1874 - 54 x 68 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - La Bohémienne
1868 - 85 x 59 cm - Oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Pont Neuf, Paris
1872 - 75 x 94 cm - Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Madame Henriot
1874 - 41 x 33 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Claude Monet - La Seine à Asnières
1873 - 46 x 55 cm - Oil on canvas
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg >

Claude Monet - Les charbonniers
1875 - 54 x 66 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >
The picture was later presented at the fourth exhibition in 1879: No. 158

Claude Monet - Un coin d'appartement
1875 - 81 x 60 cm - Oil on canvas
Shown in the third exhibition 1877 No. 115
Musée d’Orsay, Paris >

Claude Monet - La mare, effet de neige
1875 - 61 x 82 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Claude Monet - Soleil levant (marine)
1872/73 - 50 x 61 cm - Oil on canvas
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles >

Claude Monet - La Prairie.
1874 - 57 x 80 cm - Oil on canvas
Gezeigt in der zweiten Impressionisten Ausstellung 1875, Nr. 154
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin >

*******

Victor Chocquet

Photo ca. 1860

Immediately after the auction described above, a man approached Renoir. He introduced himself as Victor Chocquet and asked Renoir to paint a portrait of his wife. Renoir gladly accepted the commission, which led to a long-standing friendship between the two men.

Auguste Renoir - Portrait Mme Marie Chocquet
1875 - 75 x 60 cm - Oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart >

In the background is a painting by Delacroix from the Chocquet collection:

Eugène Delacroix - Numa et Egérie
1846 - 25 x 30 cm - Oil on paper mounted on canvas
Musée du Louvre, Paris >

Chocquet, born in Lille, was a customs inspector with a salary of around 300 francs a month. He was a modest man who, despite his low income, acquired a collection of paintings. Starting with works by Delacroix, Courbet and Corot, after the first Impressionist exhibition, which he had not seen himself, he began to buy pictures by painters of this movement. He later became very close friends with all of them.
In the end, after his wife had made an inheritance, he owned 30 paintings by Cézanne, 23 by Delacroix, 5 by Manet and 10 each by Renoir and Monet, as well as paintings by other artists. Cézanne and Renoir also painted several portraits of him. Chocquet died in 1891 and after the death of his widow, the collection was auctioned off in 1899.

Paul Cézanne - Victor Chocquet
1875 - 46 x 37 cm - Oil on canvas
Privatsammlung
Shown at the third exhibition of the Impressionists in 1877: No. 39

Auguste Renoir - Portrait Victor Chocquet
ca. 1876 - 46 x 36 cm - Oil on canvas
Sammlung Oskar Reinhard "Am Römerholz" >

Pictures from the Chocquet Collection:

Eugène Delacroix - Rochers
Nach 1822 - 21,5 x 30,5 cm - Oil on paper mounted on canvas
Musée de Valence >

Eugène Delacroix - Le Naufrage
1862 - 38,1 × 45,1 cm - Oil on canvas
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston >

Eugène Delacroix - L’Algérienne à la rose
Pauline Villot in Algerian costume)
c. 1833 - 18.4 × 15.7 cm - Pen and brown ink
Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York >

Eugène Delacroix - Bouquet de Fleurs
1849 - 65 x 65 cm - Watercolour, black chalk and gouache, heightened with pastel on grey paper
Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris >

Eugène Delacroix - Cavalier arabe à cheval
1838 - 18,3 x 20 cm - Watercolour on paper
Private property

Paul Cézanne - La Maison du Pendu, à Auvers-sur-Oise.
1873 - 55 x 66 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >
Exhibited at the 1st Impressionist Exhibition in 1874

Paul Cézanne - Le pont de Maincy
1879 - 58 x 72 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >

Paul Cézanne - Ferme en Normandie
1882 - 65 x 81 cm - Oil on canvas
Private property

Paul Cézanne - Trois baigneuses
1874/75 - 19,5 x 22,5 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >

Paul Cézanne - Baigneurs au repos
1875/76 - 38 x 45,8 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'art et d'histoire de la Ville de Genève
The larger version III was shown at the 3rd Impressionist Exhibition, now Barnes Coillection.

Paul Cézanne - Les Pêcheurs - Journée de juillet
ca. 1875 - 55 x 82 cm - Oil on canvas
1877 in the third exhibition of the Impressionists (except catalogue)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York >

Paul Cézanne - Bouquet de fleurs dans un vase
1877 - 55 x 46 cm - Oil on canvas
on show at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877 No. 20
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg >

Paul Cézanne - Nature morte: bol de pommes
um 1878/1879 - 45 x 55 cm - Oil on canvas
on show at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877 No. 19
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York >

Paul Cézanne - Le vase des tulipes
ca. 1885 - 60 × 42 cm - Oil on canvas
Art Institute Chicago >

Paul Cézanne - Mardi Gras
1888 - 102 x 81 cm - Oil on canvas
Staatliches Museum Puschkin, Moskau >

Claude Monet - Corbeille de fruits (pommes et raisins)
1879/1880 - 67 x 89 cm - Oil on canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York >

Claude Monet - Maison de pêcheur au Petit Ailly
1882 - 65 x 81 cm - Oil on canvas
Private property

Claude Monet - La Meule de foin
1885 - 65 × 82 cm - Oil on canvas
Oharaa Museum of Art, (大原美術館 - Oharabijutsukan) at Kurashiki (Japan) >

Claude Monet - Au Petit-Gennevilliers
1874 - 55 x 73 cm - Oil on canvas
Private property

Claude Monet - La Prairie
1879 - 81 x 100 cm - Oil on canvas
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, USA >

Édouard Manet - Monet peignant sur son bateau
1874 - 83 x 105 cm - Oil on canvas
Neue Pinakothek, München >

Édouard Manet - Marée montante
1873 - 47 x 58 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Édouard Manet - Lilas blanc, dans un vase de crístal
1882 - 56 x 35 cm - Oil on canvas
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA >

Edouard Manet - La rue Mosnier aux paveurs
1878 - 64 x 80 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Conversation confidentielle
1878 - 61 x 50 cm - Oil on canvas
Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Le moulin de la Galette
1876 - 78 x 114 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection
(Smaller second version - The larger version was shown at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877,
today in the Musée d'Orsay)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - La Seine à Asnières
1875 - 71 x 92 cm - Oil on canvas
The National Gallery, London >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Alphonsine Fournaise
1879 - 73 x 93 cm - Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris >

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Liseuse
1876 - 65 x 55 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection
Exhibited at the 2nd Impressionist Exhibition in 1876

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Sur la Terasse
ca. 1876 - 67 x 54 cm - Oil on canvas
Pushkin Museum, Moskau >
Exhibited at the 2nd Impressionist Exhibition in 1876

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Falaises sur la côte près de Pourville
1879 - Oil on canvas
Private collection

Berthe Morisot - La Toilette
1876 - 54 x 45 cm - Oil on canvas
Private collection
Exhibited at the 2nd Impressionist Exhibition in 1876

Berthe Morisot - La Jetée
1875 - 24 x 51 cm - Oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA >
Exhibited at the 2nd Impressionist Exhibition in 1876

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Portrait Victor Chocquet
ca. 1875 - 53 x 43 cm - Oil on canvas
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge >

(in the background a painting by Delacroix from the Chocquet collection)

Eugène Delacroix - Hercule délivre Hésione
ca. 1853/54 - 22,5 x 26,9 cm - Oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Kopenhagen >

Paul Cézanne - Portrait de Victor Chocquet assis
1877 - 46 x 38 cm - Oil on canvas
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, USA >

Édouard Manet

Of the group of Impressionist painters known today, Édouard Manet did not take part in the 1874 exhibition or any others. He saw the presentation there as a step in the wrong direction, so he tried to get some of his paintings into the official Salon. To his great disappointment, only one was accepted in 1874: 'Le chemin de fer'. It was described in a newspaper as a "railway to Charenton", a reference to the insane asylum there.

Le chemin de fer
1873 - 93 x 112 cm - Oil on canvas
Exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1874
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC >

Manet in the period 1870 - 1876

Repose - Portrait Berthe Morisot
ca 1870/71 - 150 x 114 cm - Oil on canvas
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design >

Le croquet
1873 - 72 x 106 cm - Oil on canvas
Städel Museum, Frankfurt >

La famille Monet dans leur jardin à Argenteuil
1874 - 61 x 99 cm - Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York >

Le Grand Canal de Venise (Venise bleue)
1875 - 54 x 65 cm - Oil on canvas
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne >

En bateau
1874 - 97 x 130 cm - Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York >

In 1876, Eduard Manet could not be persuaded to take part in his painter friends' second attempt at an exhibition, even though he was unable to submit a painting to the Paris Salon that year. He showed the two works submitted there at the same time as the exhibition in April 1876 in his own studio, where they were seen by thousands of visitors and derisively commented on by the newspapers.

La linge
1875 - 145 x 115 cm - Oil on canvas
Fondation Barnes, Philadelphia >

L'artiste
Portrait Marcellin Desboutin
1875 - 128 x 91 cm - Oil on canvas
Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil >

Édouard Manet applied to the official Salon again in 1877 with the painting "Nana". The painting was perceived as a scandal (like his "Olympia" years earlier) and rejected. Manet then showed it in a shop window in Paris. The painting attracted a great deal of attention there, as people in Paris knew what happened in frivolous salons, but depicting it realistically was still considered a taboo. The novel Nana by Emile Zola was not published until two years later. However, Zola had dedicated a chapter to the character in a previous novel, so the similarity in names was probably no coincidence.

Nana
1877 - 154 x 115 cm - Oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle >

Devant le miroir
1877 - 92 x 71 cm - Oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York >

La prune
1877 - 74 x 50 cm - Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington >