Provenance
(Manet sale, Paris, 4 February 1884, no. 9, withdrawn). (Camentron, Paris); possibly from whom purchased 1897 by (Durand-Ruel, New York and Paris);[1] sold 27 January 1906 through (Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard [1865-1937], Paris) to Alexandre Berthier, 4th Prince de Wagram [1883-1918], Paris.[2] P.R. Pearson, Paris, by 1912. (Galerie Arnot, Vienna); purchased 1913 by Österreichische Staatsgalerie (now Österreichische Galerie Belvedere), Vienna; released 1923 in exchange for two other paintings, possibly to (Galérie Barbazanges, Paris);[2] (Hodebert, Paris).[3] Acquired 1930 in Germany by (Galerie Étienne Bignou, Paris) for (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, London);[4] sold 1930 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1] In 1904 Durand-Ruel lent the painting to an exhibition in Dublin organized by the collector Hugh Lane (1875-1915), who established that city's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1908. Sarah Herring, Assistant Curator of 19th Century Paintings, National Gallery, London, first brought the 1904 exhibition to the NGA's attention (letter to Philip Conisbee, 11 February 2002, in NGA curatorial files). Dr. Philip McEvansoneya, Head of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College, Dublin, kindly provided references to reviews of the exhibition, and suggested that Lane may have considered purchasing the painting, as the collector did buy several other works lent by Durand-Ruel (e-mail, 8 June 2006, and letter, 20 July 2006, in NGA curatorial files).
[2] On the sale to Wagram, see Léa Saint-Raymond, “Coulisses et Ficelles du Métier: Dans les Pas du Prince de Wagram,” in Alice Ensabella, et al., _Histoire des galeries d’art en France du XIXe au XXIe siècle_, Paris: 2024: 136, 145; as well as Saint-Raymond and Hadrien Viraben, “The virtual collection of Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Wagram,” _Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide_ vol.19, no 2 (Summer 2020), online at https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2020.19.2.4. For a dataset documenting the prince's collection see Saint-Raymond and Viraben, "Alexandre Berthier, the 4th Prince de Wagram: documentation on his collection (1904-1917)", 2019, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/TIFXCH, Harvard Dataverse, V1
[3] In several publications during the 20th century (1919, 1925, and 1960), the painting is referred to as being owned by the "Musée de Vienne, Autriche" and "the Vienna Gallery." An inquiry to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna was made in 2007, but no records concerning the painting were found. However, Karl Schütz, director of the KHM, suggested the painting had probably been instead at the Belvedere Museum, previously called the Österreichische Galerie; see e-mail from Elke Oberthaler of the KHM, 31 August 2007, in NGA curatorial files. This was confirmed by Monika Mayer, of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, who kindly provided details of the 1923 transaction (see her e-mail, 12 December 2007, in NGA curatorial files). The two paintings for which the Manet was exchanged were _Marietta_ by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and _Badende_ by Auguste Renoir.
[3] Hodebert was the successor to the Galerie Barbarzanges, which had been located on the property of fashion designer Paul Poiret. Poiret went bankrupt in early 1923 and lost the property; it is likely that the gallery changed hands at that time.
[4] Correspondence between Bignou and Reid & Lefèvre dated April-September 1930 (Lefèvre archives, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Britain, London, TGA 2002/11, Box 218). The painting was possibly acquired through the Galerie Matthiesen in Berlin, where it was exhibited in 1928.
Accession Number
1963.10.162
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 187.4 x 248.2 cm (73 3/4 x 97 11/16 in.) | framed: 238.76 x 297.82 cm (94 x 117 1/4 in.) | framed weight: 275 lb.
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Chester Dale Collection
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
The Old Musician, painted in 1862, is one of Manet's largest and most ambitious early works - a mysterious tableau that combines elements of contemporary realism with references to classical and Renaissance art. It depicts six figures gathered on the outskirts of Paris: a seated fiddler, a man with a top hat, a young boy, and three other figures whose identities and relationships remain enigmatic.
The setting is the Petite Cenelle, a recently demolished quarter of Paris that had been home to ragpickers, laborers, and social outcasts - the displaced poor of Haussmann's massive redevelopment of the city. Manet fills this urban wasteland with figures who seem to belong to different worlds: the fiddler echoes the philosophers of Renaissance paintings, the boy in the straw hat recalls Raphael's cherubs, and the overall composition recalls Giorgione's pastoral scenes transposed to the margins of modern Paris.
Manet painted this at a moment of personal and artistic transition. He had recently absorbed the lessons of Velazquez and the Spanish masters, and he was searching for a way to apply their direct, unadorned approach to contemporary French subject matter. The Old Musician is his first attempt to create a modern Grand Machine - a large-scale figure composition that could hold its own with the academic history paintings of the Salon.
Cultural Impact
The Old Musician is now recognized as a pivotal work in Manet's development - the painting where he first fully committed to painting modern life on the scale traditionally reserved for mythological and historical subjects. Its influence extends to every subsequent artist who sought to find grandeur in the commonplace.
Why It Matters
This painting is Manet's declaration that the outcasts of modern Paris deserve the same artistic dignity as the heroes of classical mythology. The old musician - poor, marginal, forgotten - becomes the central figure of a composition as ambitious as any Salon painting, asserting that contemporary life is a worthy subject for serious art.
