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Edouard Manet, 'Eva Gonzalès', 1870
About the work
Overview
Eva Gonzalès (1847–1883), Manet’s only formal pupil, was a successful artist and a regular exhibitor at the Salon. This portrait was probably started in the summer of 1869 and involved numerous sittings. It was finally finished in March 1870 and shown at the Salon the same year.
Manet had painted other artists (both men and women), but this portrait is unusual in that it shows Gonzalès painting at her easel. The work on the easel, already finished and framed, is a copy after an etching by the flower painter Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636–1699). A half-rolled print carrying Manet’s signature lies on the floor, a reminder of his role as her teacher. Her pose, along with the white dress and the fluidity of the brushstrokes with which it is painted, recall eighteenth-century self portraits by women. In these they show themselves at their easels, dressed in beautiful, often white gowns, which attest to their success. Here, her flowing white dress fills the composition, its brightness heightened by the dark background so that it becomes a source of illumination in its own right.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Eva Gonzalès
- Artist
- Edouard Manet
- Artist dates
- 1832 - 1883
- Date made
- 1870
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 191.1 × 133.4 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed; Dated
- Acquisition credit
- Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
- Inventory number
- NG3259
- Location
- Central Hall
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Subjects
- Frame
- 19th-century English Frame
Provenance
Given to Eva Gonzalès by Edouard Manet; after her death in 1883 the painting passed to her husband Henri Guérard; in Guérard’s Inventaire après décès of 5 April 1897, par Anne Charles Champetier de Ribes, notaire à Paris: the portrait is listed in the salon next to the atelier on the second floor, ‘Portrait of Eva Gonzalès’ by Manet; after his death in 1897 the painting passed to his widow, Jeanne Guérard‐Gonzalès (1852–1924), Gonzalès’s sister, whom Guérard had married after her death; with Gaston‐Alexandre Camentron (1862–1919), from whom bought by Paul Durand‐Ruel in 1899; acquired from Durand‐Ruel by Hugh Lane in 1906: according to Thomas Bodkin, Lane was short of money at this time and exchanged the pictures by Manet for others by Nicolas Lancret and Thomas Gainsborough; Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917; at the Tate Gallery, 1919, from where transferred, 1950.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in ‘National Gallery Catalogues: Online Entries’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2012Manet: Portraying LifeToledo Museum of Art4 October 2012 - 1 January 2013Royal Academy of Arts26 January 2013 - 14 April 2013
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2012Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2012 - 2019) (Group A)Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane31 December 2012 - 20 October 2019
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2014Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art MarketMusée du Luxembourg9 October 2014 - 8 February 2015Philadelphia Museum of Art24 June 2015 - 13 September 2015
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2022Discover Manet and Eva GonzalèsThe National Gallery (London)21 October 2022 - 15 January 2023
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2022Discover Manet & Eva GonzalèsDublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane1 June 2022 - 18 September 2022
Bibliography
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1870J. Castagnary, 'Salon de 1870', Le Siècle, 1870
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1870M. Chaumelin, 'Les horreurs de monsieur Manet', La Presse, 1870
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1870G. Lafenestre, 'Salon de 1870', Le Moniteur universel, 1870
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1870L. Pichat, 'Salon de 1870', Le Réveil, 1870
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1870A. Wolff, 'Salon de 1870', Le Figaro, 1870
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1870T. Duret, 'Salon de 1870', L'Electeur libre, 1870
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1884E. Bazire, Manet, Paris 1884
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1884E. Zola et al., Edouard Manet (exh. cat. Ecole nationale des Beaux-Arts, January 1884), Paris 1884
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1897A. Proust, 'Edouard Manet inédit', Revue blanche, 1897
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1902T. Duret, Histoire de Edouard Manet et de son oeuvre, Paris 1902
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1902H. von Tschudi, Manet, Berlin 1902
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1906G. Moore, Reminiscences of the Impressionists Painters, Dublin 1906
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1910E. Haencke, 'Manet als Porträtmaler', Kunst und Künstler, VIII, 1910, pp. 239-49
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1912J. Meier-Graefe, Edouard Manet, Munich 1912
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1913A. Proust, Edouard Manet: Souvenirs, Paris 1913
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1917L.H. Cust, 'Manet at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XXX/168, 1917, pp. 110-5
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1917C.J. Holmes, 'New Exhibits at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XXX/167, 1917, pp. 80-1
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1917C. Phillips, 'National Gallery, II: Sir Hugh Lane's Pictures', Daily Telegraph, 1917
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1926E. Moreau-Nélaton, Manet raconté par lui-même, 2 vols, Paris 1926
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1926C. Bell, 'Les tableaux français modernes à la Galerie Tate et à la Galerie Nationale de Londres', L'Amour de l'art, 1926
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1926Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale: Moreau-Nélaton catalogue manuscrits, 1926
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1928J. Meier-Graefe, 'Julius: Die Franzosen in der Tate Gallery', Cicerone, 12, 1928, pp. 389-97
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1929R. Huyghe, 'L'art français moderne et les musées anglais', Beaux-arts, XV, 1929
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1931A. Tabarant, Manet: Histoire catalographique, Paris 1931
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1932T. Bodkin, Hugh Lane and his Pictures, Dublin 1932
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1932P. Colin, Edouard Manet, Paris 1932
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1932P. Jamot, G. Wildenstein and M.-L. Bataille, Manet, Paris 1932
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1932P. Bayle, 'Eva Gonzalès', La Renaissance de l'art français et des industries de luxe, 1932, pp. 110-5
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1932P. Jamot, 'La Poésie de Manet', L'Amour de l'Art, XIII/5, 1932, pp. 149-51
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1939L. Venturi, Les archives de l'impressionnisme, Paris 1939
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1940F.A. Sweet, 'Girl with Cherries by Eva Gonzalès', Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1940, pp. 74-5
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1941G. Jedlicka, Edouard Manet, Zürich 1941
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1947M. Florisoone, Manet, Monaco 1947
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1947A. Tabarant, Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris 1947
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1950C. Roger-Marx, Eva Gonzalès, Paris 1950
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1950D. Rouart, Correspondence de Berthe Morisot, Paris 1950
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1954N.G. Sandblad, Manet: Three Studies in Artistic Conception, Lund 1954
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1954G.H. Hamilton, Manet and His Critics, New Haven 1954
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1956J. Plesters, 'Cross-Sections and Chemical Analysis of Paint Samples', Studies in Conservation, II/3, 1956, pp. 110-57
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1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
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1959J.W.H. Hemmings and R.J. Niess, E. Zola: Salons, Paris 1959
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1970Davies, Martin, and Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc., London 1970
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1970S. Orienti and P. Pool, The Complete Paintings of Manet, London 1970
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1972G. Bazin, Edouard Manet, Milan 1972
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1975D. Rouart and D. Wildenstein, Edouard Manet: Catalogue raisonné, Lausanne 1975
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1981B. Arnold, Orpen: Mirror to an Age, London 1981
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1982J. Richardson, Manet, Oxford 1982
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1983M. Wilson, Manet at Work: An Exhibition to Mark the Centenary of the Death of Edouard Manet, 1832-1883 (exh. cat. The National Gallery, London, 10 August - 9 October 1983), London 1983
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1986K. Adler, Manet, Oxford 1986
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1986K. Adler and T. Garb, The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, London 1986
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1987K. Adler and T. Garb, Berthe Morisot, Oxford 1987
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1988G. Sello, Malerinnen aus fünf Jahrhunderten, Hamburg 1988
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1989H. Keller, Edouard Manet, Munich 1989
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1990F. Cachin, Manet, Paris 1990
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1990M.-C. Sainsaulieu and J. de Mons, Eva Gonzalès 1849-1883: Étude critique et catalogue raisonné, Paris 1990
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1993M. Delafond and M.-C. Sainsaulieu, Les femmes impressionistes: Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Berthe Morisot, (exh. cat. Musée Marmottan, 13 October - 31 December 1993), Paris 1993
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1994J. House, Impressionisim for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, London 1994
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1994G. Tinterow and H. Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), New York 1994
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1995K. McConkey and B. Dawson, Impressionism in Britain and Ireland, (exh. cat. Barbican Art Gallery, 19 January - 7 May 1995), London 1995
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2000G.L. Mauner and H. Loyrette (eds), Manet: Les natures mortes (exh. cat. Musée d'Orsay, 9 October 2000 - 7 January 2001; Walters Art Gallery, 30 January - 22 April 2001), Paris 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2001T. Garb, 'Framing Femininity in Manet's Portrait of Mlle E.G.', in A. D'Souza (ed.), Self and History: A Tribute to Linda Nochlin, London 2001, pp. 76-90
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2006C. Riopelle, Manet to Picasso, London 2006
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2007T. Garb, The Painted Face: Portraits of Women in France, 1814-1914, New Haven 2007
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2007S. Waller, 'Realist Quandaries: Posing Professional and Proprietary Models in the 1860s', Art Bulletin, LXXXIX/2, 2007, pp. 239-65
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2024The National Gallery, National Gallery Catalogues: Online Entries for Individual Paintings, London 2024
Frame
This is a nineteenth-century English frame made in the Rococo style. The frame is crafted from carved pinewood and oil-gilded. On the back edge is an acanthus-leaf pattern, and where the swept outlines of the frame reveal this back edge there is also a carved decoration.
On the swept outer edge of the frame are bundled reeds. An acanthus-leaf pattern follows the curves of the frame and leads towards a sanded flat and raked gadroons at the sight edge. Corners feature wing motifs and flowers; flowers are also at the centres of the frames with lambrequins.
Manet’s Eva Gonzalès arrived at the Gallery in this frame. It has undergone alterations and regilding. The frame is shown with Manet’s Eva Gonzalès in William Orpen’s 1909 painting Homage to Manet (Manchester Art Gallery), and may have been chosen to complement the floral elements within the painting. A photograph of 1884, taken at the Exposition des oeuvres d’Edouard Manet (Ecole Nationale des Beaux‐Arts, Paris), shows the painting in a French gallery frame, with spandrels.
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
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