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Lot Essay
Edouard Manet’s Pivoines dans une bouteille is one of a rare series of six floral still lifes painted in 1864, all of which take as their subject the diaphanous, expansive blooms of peonies, said to be the artist’s favorite flower (Wildenstein, nos. 86-91). This small series, three of which are now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris and the other two in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, came after an extraordinary period of creativity in Manet’s career. Between 1862 and 1864, he painted a number of his best-known works, the great figure paintings that elicited an epoch-defining scandal both due to his daring subject matter and bold handling. These works included Le vieux musicien (Wildenstein, no. 52; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Wildenstein, no. 67; Musée d’Orsay, Paris), Le Christ aux anges (Wildenstein, no. 74; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Olympia (Wildenstein, no. 69; Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which was finished in 1865.
Still life is the touchstone of the painter. Edouard Manet
Beginning in the the early 1860s, Manet sought to free himself from the weight and gravitas of history painting. On a scale usually reserved for academic subjects, he painted figures from modern day Paris—a prostitute, his friends, travelers on the outskirts of Paris, and more—shocking audiences with these brazenly defiant scenes, all of which he executed with bold, lavish brushstrokes and striking tonal contrasts.
Do you remember that one day we saw a very extraordinary Manet at the Hôtel Drouot, some huge pink peonies with their green leaves against a light background? As free in the open air and as much a flower as anything could be, and yet painted in a perfectly solid impasto… That’s what I’d call simplicity of technique. Vincent van Gogh
In contrast to these large and controversial paintings, however, Manet relished the intimacy of the still life. Manet believed that the still-life genre stood at the heart of painting. “Still life is the touchstone of the painter,” he once remarked (quoted in G.L. Mauner, Manet: The Still-Life Paintings, New York, 2000, p. 12). Throughout the 1860s, he painted not only flowers, but oysters and fish, fruit and vegetables, and in one case, a brioche. “A painter can say all he wants to with fruits or flowers, or even clouds,” Manet said. “You know, I should like to be the Saint Francis of still life” (quoted in ibid., p. 12).
Peonies—highly sought after in Second Empire Paris, having been only recently introduced in Europe—were regarded as an item of luxury, and a symbol of wealth and status when displayed in drawing rooms across Paris. Manet supposedly grew his own peonies in his garden at his country home in Gennevilliers. These blousy, exuberant blooms offered the artist the perfect vehicle to deploy his bold and sensuous brushwork, lavishing rich strokes of paint to capture their numerous petals and dazzling white or deep pink and red tones.
In the present work, a trio of peonies is arranged in a tall, narrow vase, their rich green flowers framing the lavish petals. Two more stems lie upon the dark wooden tabletop, as if waiting to be arranged into another vessel. Against the background, the white, cream, and pink peonies dazzle as chromatic illuminations within this quiet scene. In the five related works, Manet displayed the floral arrangements in a variety of vases, as well as a wine bottle and beer stein, some brimming with blooms, others more sparing; and also portrayed the stems lying directly upon the tabletop. In the Musée d’Orsay’s Tiges de pivoines et secateur (Wildenstein, no. 91), the stems are propped up against the wall, hanging downwards, as if echoing the still-life master, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s depictions of hanging game. The secateurs lie precariously on the side of the tabletop next to the just-cut stems, its blades open in a virtuosic display of the artist’s painterly mastery. In some canvases, the flowers are fresh, in others, they appear with gently fallen petals, their blossoms beginning to decline. In this way, Manet’s series speaks to the vanitas still lifes of the past, combining, as in so much of his work, art historical reference with a defiantly modern viewpoint.
Manet would turn to the still life at some of the most important moments of his life. Firstly this 1864 series of flowers, which he painted in the wake of the critical attack that his recent works had generated at the infamous Salon des Refusés of 1863 and the Salon of 1864, and secondly and most poignantly, in the final two years of his life, when, struck by illness, he turned once again to this genre, picturing posies of flowers that his friend’s brought to him in works that convey the transience of time—and of life.
The importance of this genre to Manet can also be seen in his frequent inclusion of still-life vignettes and motifs in some of his most important figure canvases. In Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, which caused scandal when shown in the Salon des Refusés, the three figures—one startlingly nude next to her dressed male counterparts—have clearly enjoyed their picnic and have turned away from the basket of tumbling fruit and bread in the foreground, each piece lavished with the same detail as the rest of this enigmatic scene. In Olympia, the maid is proffering a voluminous bouquet of flowers to the protagonist as she reclines upon the divan. A gift from a previous, or perhaps her next customer, the transactional nature of her work is laid bare.
Despite the hostility with which these infamous figural works were initially met, the still lifes within these radical compositions were often recognized, and mostly complimented. “The most vocal enemies of Manet’s talent,” Emile Zola stated in 1867, “acknowledge the fact that he paints inanimate objects well” (quoted in ibid., p. 155). Another critic, Albert Wolff described Manet’s Portrait d’Eva Gonzalés (Wildenstein, no. 154; National Gallery, London), which he saw in the Salon of 1870, “As long as Mr. Manet paints lemons or oranges, as long as he composes still lifes, it is possible to acknowledge extenuating circumstances” (quoted in ibid., p. 153).
Painted with the same painterly boldness as his radical figure paintings of the era, Manet’s series of 1864 peony paintings, including the present work, demonstrated the importance of the still-life genre for the next generation of artists who continued to push the conventions of art in the decades that followed. For example, Manet’s contemporaries Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir looked to the still life at the start of their careers as a means to explore color and light in their Impressionist quest for spontaneity. For Paul Cezanne, the still life stood at the center of his practice, the embodiment of his desire to capture the essence of representation on the canvas.
A few decades later, a young Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris with ambitions to pursue a career as an artist. While there, he saw one of Manet’s 1864 floral still-lifes, later writing, “Do you remember that one day we saw a very extraordinary Manet at the Hôtel Drouot, some huge pink peonies with their green leaves against a light background? As free in the open air and as much a flower as anything could be, and yet painted in a perfectly solid impasto… That’s what I’d call simplicity of technique” (quoted in F. Cachin, C.S. Moffett, and J. Wilson Bareau, Manet, 1832-1883, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983, p. 208). Deeply inspired, Van Gogh painted his own series of floral still life and, a few years later, the dazzling canvases of roses and irises that are today recognized among the most important works of his career.
For Henri Matisse too, the lessons of Manet were a crucial part of his early artistic journey. The still life offered the prefect vehicle for his explorations into color and light that would underpin his art. Works such as Fleurs painted in 1907 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), demonstrate how the artist simplified the world around him into flattened planes of richly impastoed, increasingly vibrant color. As he stated in 1912, “Goya, Dürer, Rembrandt, Corot, Manet are my favorite masters” (quoted in J. Flam, Matisse on Art, New York, 1978, p. 52).
Goya, Dürer, Rembrandt, Corot, Manet are my favorite masters. Henri Matisse
In addition to the late owner Marilyn Arison, Pivoines dans une bouteille was formerly in the collection of another important female collector. In December 1928, this work was acquired by Anna Evangeline La Chapelle Clark, who with her husband, a wealthy industrialist and senator, William A. Clark, had collected fine art, musical instruments, Gilded Age furnishings, decorative arts, and rare books. Upon his death in 1925, a significant portion of his collection was gifted to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (now part of the National Gallery of Art). Mrs. Clark and her daughter, Huguette, continued to expand their family’s art collection, acquiring paintings, as well as furniture and antiquities.
Huguette inherited her parents’ love for fine art and music, and became an accomplished artist and musician in her own right. After her mother’s death in 1963, she continued to live in New York, shunning the spotlight to focus on her art and collecting. Pivoines dans une bouteille remained in her collection for the rest of her life, until she passed away at the age of 104.
Still life is the touchstone of the painter. Edouard Manet
Beginning in the the early 1860s, Manet sought to free himself from the weight and gravitas of history painting. On a scale usually reserved for academic subjects, he painted figures from modern day Paris—a prostitute, his friends, travelers on the outskirts of Paris, and more—shocking audiences with these brazenly defiant scenes, all of which he executed with bold, lavish brushstrokes and striking tonal contrasts.
Do you remember that one day we saw a very extraordinary Manet at the Hôtel Drouot, some huge pink peonies with their green leaves against a light background? As free in the open air and as much a flower as anything could be, and yet painted in a perfectly solid impasto… That’s what I’d call simplicity of technique. Vincent van Gogh
In contrast to these large and controversial paintings, however, Manet relished the intimacy of the still life. Manet believed that the still-life genre stood at the heart of painting. “Still life is the touchstone of the painter,” he once remarked (quoted in G.L. Mauner, Manet: The Still-Life Paintings, New York, 2000, p. 12). Throughout the 1860s, he painted not only flowers, but oysters and fish, fruit and vegetables, and in one case, a brioche. “A painter can say all he wants to with fruits or flowers, or even clouds,” Manet said. “You know, I should like to be the Saint Francis of still life” (quoted in ibid., p. 12).
Peonies—highly sought after in Second Empire Paris, having been only recently introduced in Europe—were regarded as an item of luxury, and a symbol of wealth and status when displayed in drawing rooms across Paris. Manet supposedly grew his own peonies in his garden at his country home in Gennevilliers. These blousy, exuberant blooms offered the artist the perfect vehicle to deploy his bold and sensuous brushwork, lavishing rich strokes of paint to capture their numerous petals and dazzling white or deep pink and red tones.
In the present work, a trio of peonies is arranged in a tall, narrow vase, their rich green flowers framing the lavish petals. Two more stems lie upon the dark wooden tabletop, as if waiting to be arranged into another vessel. Against the background, the white, cream, and pink peonies dazzle as chromatic illuminations within this quiet scene. In the five related works, Manet displayed the floral arrangements in a variety of vases, as well as a wine bottle and beer stein, some brimming with blooms, others more sparing; and also portrayed the stems lying directly upon the tabletop. In the Musée d’Orsay’s Tiges de pivoines et secateur (Wildenstein, no. 91), the stems are propped up against the wall, hanging downwards, as if echoing the still-life master, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s depictions of hanging game. The secateurs lie precariously on the side of the tabletop next to the just-cut stems, its blades open in a virtuosic display of the artist’s painterly mastery. In some canvases, the flowers are fresh, in others, they appear with gently fallen petals, their blossoms beginning to decline. In this way, Manet’s series speaks to the vanitas still lifes of the past, combining, as in so much of his work, art historical reference with a defiantly modern viewpoint.
Manet would turn to the still life at some of the most important moments of his life. Firstly this 1864 series of flowers, which he painted in the wake of the critical attack that his recent works had generated at the infamous Salon des Refusés of 1863 and the Salon of 1864, and secondly and most poignantly, in the final two years of his life, when, struck by illness, he turned once again to this genre, picturing posies of flowers that his friend’s brought to him in works that convey the transience of time—and of life.
The importance of this genre to Manet can also be seen in his frequent inclusion of still-life vignettes and motifs in some of his most important figure canvases. In Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, which caused scandal when shown in the Salon des Refusés, the three figures—one startlingly nude next to her dressed male counterparts—have clearly enjoyed their picnic and have turned away from the basket of tumbling fruit and bread in the foreground, each piece lavished with the same detail as the rest of this enigmatic scene. In Olympia, the maid is proffering a voluminous bouquet of flowers to the protagonist as she reclines upon the divan. A gift from a previous, or perhaps her next customer, the transactional nature of her work is laid bare.
Despite the hostility with which these infamous figural works were initially met, the still lifes within these radical compositions were often recognized, and mostly complimented. “The most vocal enemies of Manet’s talent,” Emile Zola stated in 1867, “acknowledge the fact that he paints inanimate objects well” (quoted in ibid., p. 155). Another critic, Albert Wolff described Manet’s Portrait d’Eva Gonzalés (Wildenstein, no. 154; National Gallery, London), which he saw in the Salon of 1870, “As long as Mr. Manet paints lemons or oranges, as long as he composes still lifes, it is possible to acknowledge extenuating circumstances” (quoted in ibid., p. 153).
Painted with the same painterly boldness as his radical figure paintings of the era, Manet’s series of 1864 peony paintings, including the present work, demonstrated the importance of the still-life genre for the next generation of artists who continued to push the conventions of art in the decades that followed. For example, Manet’s contemporaries Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir looked to the still life at the start of their careers as a means to explore color and light in their Impressionist quest for spontaneity. For Paul Cezanne, the still life stood at the center of his practice, the embodiment of his desire to capture the essence of representation on the canvas.
A few decades later, a young Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris with ambitions to pursue a career as an artist. While there, he saw one of Manet’s 1864 floral still-lifes, later writing, “Do you remember that one day we saw a very extraordinary Manet at the Hôtel Drouot, some huge pink peonies with their green leaves against a light background? As free in the open air and as much a flower as anything could be, and yet painted in a perfectly solid impasto… That’s what I’d call simplicity of technique” (quoted in F. Cachin, C.S. Moffett, and J. Wilson Bareau, Manet, 1832-1883, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983, p. 208). Deeply inspired, Van Gogh painted his own series of floral still life and, a few years later, the dazzling canvases of roses and irises that are today recognized among the most important works of his career.
For Henri Matisse too, the lessons of Manet were a crucial part of his early artistic journey. The still life offered the prefect vehicle for his explorations into color and light that would underpin his art. Works such as Fleurs painted in 1907 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), demonstrate how the artist simplified the world around him into flattened planes of richly impastoed, increasingly vibrant color. As he stated in 1912, “Goya, Dürer, Rembrandt, Corot, Manet are my favorite masters” (quoted in J. Flam, Matisse on Art, New York, 1978, p. 52).
Goya, Dürer, Rembrandt, Corot, Manet are my favorite masters. Henri Matisse
In addition to the late owner Marilyn Arison, Pivoines dans une bouteille was formerly in the collection of another important female collector. In December 1928, this work was acquired by Anna Evangeline La Chapelle Clark, who with her husband, a wealthy industrialist and senator, William A. Clark, had collected fine art, musical instruments, Gilded Age furnishings, decorative arts, and rare books. Upon his death in 1925, a significant portion of his collection was gifted to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (now part of the National Gallery of Art). Mrs. Clark and her daughter, Huguette, continued to expand their family’s art collection, acquiring paintings, as well as furniture and antiquities.
Huguette inherited her parents’ love for fine art and music, and became an accomplished artist and musician in her own right. After her mother’s death in 1963, she continued to live in New York, shunning the spotlight to focus on her art and collecting. Pivoines dans une bouteille remained in her collection for the rest of her life, until she passed away at the age of 104.