Eva Gonzalès
Artist
Édouard Manet
(1832 - 1883)
Date1870
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions191.1 × 133.4 cm
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineSir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
Object number3259
DescriptionBy 1908 Hugh Lane had earned the reputation as one of the first and most well known collectors of Impressionism outside of France. As D.S. McColl observed, Lane "with knowledge and courage and no great amount of money did in a year or so what official buyers will now find it difficult to do at all". He was speaking in the wake of Lane's purchase of Manet's Eva Gonzalès and La Musique aux Tuileries in 1906. Eva Gonzalès was already familiar to Irish audiences, having been included in a loan exhibition organised by Lane in1904 when seeking support for his proposed gallery of modern art for Dublin.Eva Gonzalès was an accomplished painter, pupil and friend of the artist. In this large portrait, painted for the 1870 Salon, she is seated at her easel resplendent in a white dress. Manet revelled in the fabrics and forms of women's fashions. However, he had to repeatedly rework the face perhaps due to his sitter's distinctive nose. Later that year Manet corresponded with Gonzalès in Dieppe while he fought as a volunteer gunner in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Gonzalès married Henri Guerard in 1879 but died in 1883 after giving birth and within a few days of Manet himself.
On View
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