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Lot Essay
Eva Gonzalès first received critical acclaim at the age of twenty when she exhibited three paintings and was the subject of another by Edouard Manet, her maître, at the Paris Salon of 1870. Her own works were reviewed in the press and Manet's life-size portrait of her (Wildenstein 154; coll. National Gallery, London) - brush in hand before her easel - prominently displayed both her beauty and the seriousness of her desire to be a painter.
Gonzalès was raised in an environment that valued the arts; her father was a well-known novelist and her mother an accomplished musician. The single greatest influence on her artistic style was Manet, whom she met in 1869 and later became his student, model and friend. While many of her subjects were Impressionist in nature - theatregoers and women relaxing outdoors - her painting style was not so. Her works show a great affinity to the late paintings of Manet, in particular the still-lifes in which both artists utilize staccato-like brushwork.
Gonzalès was raised in an environment that valued the arts; her father was a well-known novelist and her mother an accomplished musician. The single greatest influence on her artistic style was Manet, whom she met in 1869 and later became his student, model and friend. While many of her subjects were Impressionist in nature - theatregoers and women relaxing outdoors - her painting style was not so. Her works show a great affinity to the late paintings of Manet, in particular the still-lifes in which both artists utilize staccato-like brushwork.