Description
One of the earliest portrait pastels executed by Manet, this dashing subject was the painter Alphonse Maureau, an habitue of the cafe La Nouvelle Athenes.
Provenance
By descent from the artist to his wife, Suzanne Manet (née Leenhoff; 1829–1906), Paris, Apr. 30, 1883 [artist’s estate stamp (Lugt 880), recto, lower right, in red]; sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Feb. 4–5, 1884, lot 121, to Marcel Bernstein (1840–1896), Paris, for 1,050 francs [Julius Meier-Graefe, Edouard Manet (R. Piper & Co., 1912), p. 327, no. 121, the buyer was recorded as simply Bernstein. Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, Edouard Manet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. 2, Pastels, aquarelles et dessins(Bibliothèque des arts, 1975), p. 2, no. 6 (ill.), provides the first name “Marcel.”]. Deposited by Ivan Shchukin (1869–1908), Paris, at Durand-Ruel, Paris, June 28, 1900 [Flavie Durand-Ruel, email message to Gloria Groom, May 23, 2016 in curatorial file, Art Institute of Chicago. Durand-Ruel notes, “This pastel was deposited at Durand-Ruel Paris on June 28th 1900 by Ivan Chtchoukine (Durand-Ruel Paris Deposit no. 9835)”; however, this is probably a phonetic spelling of Shchukin and refers to Ivan Shchukin (1869–1908)]; sold by Ivan Shchukin to Durand-Ruel, Paris, Dec. 28, 1900, for 4,500 francs [Flavie Durand-Ruel, e-mail message to Gloria Groom, May 23, 2016, in curatorial file, Art Institute of Chicago. See Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock 6182 and photo 1750.]. Durand-Ruel, Paris, to at least 1914. Carl O. Nielsen (1868–1950), Christiania (now Oslo), Norway. Deposited by Carl O. Nielsen, Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, at Durand-Ruel, New York, Nov. 8, 1920–Feb. 23, 1923 [Durand-Ruel New York Deposit no. 8033.]. Georges Bernheim, Paris (1893–1943), 1924 [Adolphe Tabarant, Manet: Histoire catalographique (Montaigne, 1931), pp. 459–60, no. 19; and Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, Edouard Manet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. 2, Pastels, aquarelles et dessins(Bibliothèque des arts, 1975), p. 2, no. 6 (ill.).]. Purchased by Bernheim-Jeune and Company, Paris, Mar. 21, 1924 [Guy-Patrice Dauberville, Bernheim-Jeune and Company, Paris, to the Art Institute of Chicago, July 12, 2016. The work is stock number 23 839, Bernheim-Jeune stock book for c. 1924.]. Sold by Bernheim-Jeune and Company, Paris, to Walter (1872–1954) and Kate (1897–1947) Brewster, Lake Forest, Ill., Mar. 13, 1925 [invoice]; bequeathed by Kate L. Brewster to the Art Institute, 1950.
Accession Number
90258
Medium
Pastel on canvas, prepared with an off-white ground
Dimensions
54.7 × 45.2 cm (21 9/16 × 17 13/16 in.)
Classification
pastel
Credit Line
Bequest of Kate L. Brewster
Background & Context
Background Story
"Portrait of Alphonse Maureau" is an 1878/79 pastel on canvas prepared with an off-white ground by Édouard Manet that captures the French modernist master in his most delicately sensitive and coloristically refined mode, the image showing his friend the poet and critic Alphonse Maureau rendered with the same bold simplification and chromatic warmth that characterized his most powerful portraits. The composition is a medium-sized work—54.7 × 45.2 centimeters—showing Maureau with the pastel on canvas creating a surface of extraordinary softness and intimate warmth. The off-white ground provides a luminous, sympathetic base that makes the pastel colors appear rich and inviting, enhancing the sense of friendship and artistic camaraderie. The 1878/79 date places this work in the period of Manet's mature portraiture and his continued engagement with the artistic and literary circles of Paris. Art historians have connected this portrait to the broader tradition of the artist portrait in French art, from the paintings of Delacroix to the photographs of the period, noting that Manet's treatment is more focused on the coloristic warmth and the elegant simplification, the transformation of friendship into visual celebration, than the psychological penetration or the formal analysis of these other traditions.
Cultural Impact
This 1878/79 pastel canvas made poet friend chromatically warm through medium 54cm soft pastel intimate luminosity and off-white ground sympathetic friendship, using mature Parisian artistic-circle portraiture to transform literary camaraderie into visual color celebration beyond Delacroix psychological formal analysis.
Why It Matters
It matters because Manet drew a friend and made the canvas feel like it was exchanging glances across a café table—proving that even a portrait could be a conversation if the pastel was warm enough.
