This beautiful volume features a compendium of the Metropolitan Museum's finest European paintings dating from 1800 to 1920. The focus is on French art of this period--of which the Museum possesses the most comprehensive collection outside of France--but extraordinary pictures by artists of other nationalities are also included. Thanks to a succession of generous and discerning donors-- from the H. O. Havemeyers to the Walter H. Annenbergs--this publication presents a history of painting in Paris from Prud'hon to Picasso, by way of Delacroix, Corot, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Seurat, and many others.

Manet/Velazquez

by Gary Tinterow and Rajesh S Kharat

Published 1 January 2003
In 1804, at the dawn of the French Empire, there were no more than a handful of Spanish paintings in public collections in France. During the course of the nineteenth century, however, French collectors and museums assembled substantial holdings of works by such Spanish masters as Velazquez, El Greco, Zurbaran, Murillo, and Goya. At the same time, French writers and artists-among them Delacroix, Gericault, Courbet, Millet, Bonnat, Degas, and, especially, Manet-came to understand, appreciate, and even emulate Spanish painting of the Golden Age.

This beautiful book features over 150 works by French and Spanish artists, charting the development of this cultural influence and mapping a fascinating shift in the paradigm of painting: from Idealism to Realism, from Italy to Spain, from Renaissance to Baroque. Above all, it vividly demonstrates how direct contact with Spanish painting fired the imagination of nineteenth-century French artists and brought about the triumph of Realism in the 1860s, and with it a foundation for modern art.

American artists of the second half of the nineteenth century often turned to Europe for training and inspiration. Whistler, Cassatt, Eakins, Chase, and Sargent all traveled to Spain for firsthand exposure to its artistic heritage and experienced the thrill of discovering Spanish painting. Also included in this volume are works by American artists that clearly reflect the pervasive influence of and taste for Spanish painting.