Manet's Portrait of Zola

Author(s): Theodore Reff

Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 117, No. 862 (Jan., 1975), pp. 34-44
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
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 J.M.W.TURNER S PROPOSAL FOR A 'ROYAL PROGRESS'
The subject of the composition is apparently confirmed by Turner a represents the procession advancing towards the top o
water-colour developed from it and prepared as the title-page the hill.32 A water-colour based on this design was develope
vignette to Volume I of the Provincial Antiquities.29 In the water-
over a decade later to illustrate Scott's Waverley Novels. It wa
colour (Fig.21), the mounted troops outside the gate are prob- entitled, Edinburgh: March of the Highlanders (Fig.23).33
ably the Scots Greys which acted as 'flankers' for the procession
to the Castle.
I7. Laying of the Foundation Stone for the National Monument (27t
August)
15. The King at St Giles (?) (25th August) Whilst the King was not present at this ceremony, he did send
The composition is extremely slight and fractured by the binding,
his representatives. The portico of the Observatory appears in the
and therefore the subject intended is not clear. However, rightthe middleground, and in the left distance the faint outline of
the Castle can be distinguished.34
number of vertical strokes in the upper portion of the composition
may suggest architecture. As there occurred only two major
events between the Return of the Regalia ( 2, 13, 14) on 24th 18. Unidentified event associated with Holyrood
August, and the Procession to Calton Hill (16) on 27th August, This is the last of the numbered compositions and the penulti-
and if Turner's chronology is correct, this composition must mate design of the group. As the last numbered composition, one
represent the Provost's Banquet in Parliament House on the 24th, might expect it to be concerned with the event at Hopetoun
or the King at St Giles on the 25th. Either of these two events House
is on 28th August, the knighting of Henry Raeburn and
possible especially with the suggested architectural references. Adam Fergusson. However this sketch depicts Holyrood35 and
However of the two, the St Giles event seems the more likely what Turner may have wished to represent was the King's final
departure from the Palace.
subject. In the first place, this composition bears no relationship
at all to that of the quite developed sketch of the Banquet [i 9].
Secondly the two strong vertical lines to the left, perhaps suggest
[I9.] The Provost's Banquet in Parliament House (24th August)
the stair to the pulpit prominently displayed in Turner's on-the-
This composition remains without number because Turner
spot sketches.30 We know that the artist was especially anxiousunintentionally
to omitted it from the cycle. It should appear after
develop a painting of this event, not only because of his careful
the Return of the Regalia (24th August) (14) and before sketch
and quite elaborate studies of the church interior, but because
(15), which has been identified as the King at St Giles (25th
this was one of two compositions for which he prepared oil August). The ceremony which Turner depicts took place as soon
modelli (Figs.24, 19).31 as the King had dined. A silver basin containing rose-water was
offered to the King, who, 'after he had dipped his fingers in the
16. Procession to Calton Hill associated with the Laying of the Founda-
water, and wiped them . . . acknowledged the service with an
tion Stone of the National Monument (27th August) affability and grace peculiarly his own'.36 This composition,
The laying of the foundation stone for the National Monument
much larger and more developed than other sketches of the cycle
during the King's Visit was preceded by a procession to Calton
served as the basis for an unfinished second oil modello (Fig.20).3
Hill which included infantry with bands. The procession wound
up the hill towards the site of the proposed monument at the
32 This composition was developed from sketches T.B. CC, pp.35a, 36.
summit, slightly north of Nelson's Monument. In the composition
33 FISHER'S Illustrations to the Waverley Novels (1836-1837). Tate Gallery, 4953.
29 T.B. CLXVIII-A. (See Fig.2 I).
534See
This
T.B.composition
CC, P.37. is based on T.B. CC, P.33.
30 T.B. CC, pp.33a (Fig.24), 34.
Sl Tate Gallery, 2857. 36 MUDIE, op. cit., PP.234-35.
37 Tate Gallery, 2858.

THEODORE REFF

Manet's Portrait of Zola

FROM the time Manet exhibited his portrait of as
lated Zola (Fig.29)
a well defined form against a dar
at the Salon of 1868,1 his novel treatmentground;
of its setting
and the has
same is true of the paint
been recognized as its most striking feature.
andBy depicting the
Alexandre Dumas formerly ascribed
figure as merely one among many elements inlithographs
of the an evenly of Banville, Musset, a
illuminated field, Manet broke with the traditional subor-
brothers by Gavarni.4 And if in Courbet's p
dination of background to figure that hadlaire
persisted,
readingdespite
by candlelight and Marc Tr
the importance then attached to the concept
ining a of 'milieu',
volume of prints,5 a plain wooden
even in a period of realism. In Courbet's paintings of
stove hints at the writer's bohemian exist
Champfleury and Max Buchon,2 the bust or figure is iso-

latter has been questioned: see Gustave Courbet, Villa Medici, Rome, and
1 P. JAMOT and G. WILDENSTEIN: Manet, Paris [1932], No.i46.
Palazzo It has
Reale, Milan been
[1969-70], the
No.29.
subject of two previous studies: s. L. FAISON, JNR: 'Manet's Portrait of Zola',
Magazine of Art, XLII ['949], pp.163-68; and G. T. NOSZLOPY: 'Edouard
3 H. SCHWARZ:
and figs. and 'Daumier, Gill andwereNadar',
painted Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XLIX [i9571],
Manet's "Ars Poetica" of 1868', British Journal ofpp.89-96
Aesthetics, 4; appropriately
VIIIboth [1968], from photographs.
pp. I83-9o. 4 P.-A. LEMOIsNE: Gavarni, peintre et lithographe, Paris [1928], II, pp.I69, 179, and
94, respectively.
2 G. MACK: Gustave Courbet, New York [195i], pls.i8 and 19. The identity of the 6 MACK: Gustave Courbet, pl.10. c. LEGER: Courbet, Paris [i929], p1.8.

35

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29. Portrait of Emile Zola, by Edouard Manet. Canvas, 146 by I 14 cm. (Musee du 30. The Collector of Prints, by Edgar Degas. Canvas, 52 by 39 cm. (Metro-
Louvre.) politan Museum of Art, New York.)

3'. Detail from Portrait of Emile Zola, showing the desk and books, by 32. Detail from Portrait of Emile Zola, showing the frame with prints, by
Edouard Manet. (Musee du Louvre.) Edouard Manet. (Musee du Louvre.)

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 MANET S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

remains vague and shadowy; only terms

in of his
Manet'spicture
own development,of itProudhon
stands as a conception
sitting on the steps of his house midway
is it between
more the emblematic
explicit, language
yethe hadeven
employed
here the composition directs our in designing a homage toaway
attention Baudelaire, where thethe
from bats, ser-
background and toward the principal figure.6
pent, skeleton, and nude referSo disturbing
to the poet's favourite themes
was Manet's modification of this andfamiliar
artistic sources,1i and the realistic idiom that
relationship, he would later
adopt in painting a portrait
he was accused of subverting it altogether. 'L'interit of Mallarme, where the back-
principal
ground is a greyish
appartient non au personnage', declared Paul yellow
Mantz,wall hanging,
'mais luminous
a and
warm, but largely devoid of imagery.17
certains dessins japonais dont les murailles sont couvertes: la tgte est
indiffirente et vague...'7 Even Redon, On the desk beside
a moreZola is a sheaf of books and pamphlets
sympathetic
(Fig.3i), 'C'est
observer, was forced to conclude: arranged with apparent une
plutot negligence but with such
nature
subtle
morte que l'expression d'un caracttre calculation that they
humain'.8 form a fan-like
In fact, the pattern of Cubist
figure
does stand out through its larger
flatnesssize and Foremost
and geometry. more important
among them, its bright blue
cover contrasted
position, framed as it were by the with the green
rectangular and yellowaround
forms ones adjacent to
it; and in defending the workit,Zola
is the famous
could booklet in defencedefy
safely of Manetany
that he had
published
other portraitist 'de.mettre une figure in theun
dans spring of I867.18 Having
intirieur, agreed
avec une to paint
the portraitenvironnantes
6gale e'nergie, sans que les natures mortes in gratitude for that support,
nuisentManet has
&aplaced
la t te.'9 the booklet so that its title and author's name would serve
as his own signature
In spite of this, the setting in Manet's portrait and dedication,
is more just than
as he had signed
a realistically rendered interior,and dedicated
more thanhis earlier
the portrait
'milieu' of Zacharie
ad- Astruc,
who sharedas
vocated in Duranty's journal Realisme his an
enthusiasm for oriental
essential art, on the
feature
of the modern novel1o and discussed in his Salon reviews as album of Japanese prints placed beside him.19 None
of the other books shown on Zola's desk is identified so
a means of expressing the 'intimes et significatifs rapports...
explicitly, though some are also recognizable in the group
d'esprit entre la personne et son milieu habituel' in the modern
portrait."l Unlike the desk strewn with papers and the wallbeside Astruc. But the large illustrated volume that Zola
lined with books in such later portraits of the writer in his holds and has just been reading is almost certainly one of
those in Charles Blanc's popular Histoire des Peintres; its
study as Degas's of Duranty and Cezanne's of Gustave
Geffroy, which were probably inspired by Manet's,12 the proportions, apparent size, and page design all correspond
works of art and some of the books in it are identifiable and closely.20 Manet, whose reliance on the illustrations in
carry specific meanings in addition to their generic ones. Blanc's volumes has been shown,21 undoubtedly owned this
Thus the setting in the portrait of Zola is not only 'un dicor one. Thus its presence alludes to his own persistent search
suggerant l'idle du travail intellectuel'13 in realistic detail. It is for sources in older art as much as to Zola's active interest
also a symbolic statement, contrived of objects in Manet's in the visual arts at this time. Also associated with both men
possession and executed in his studio, where Zola himself are the screen behind his chair and the large inkwell on his
said he posed in February 1868.14 In this respect it antici- desk, objects of Japanese origin or inspiration that reflect a
pates the use of pictures, books, and exotic objects in the taste they shared with many advanced painters and writers
overtly symbolist pictures of themselves and their colleagues in the I86o's. But if the inkwell, a ceramic in the style of the
painted by van Gogh and Gauguin twenty years later.15 In Rimpa School although probably manufactured in Europe,22
would have appealed, and evidently did belong, to the
novelist who in later life surrounded himself with exotic
6 To achieve this may have been one of the reasons that Courbet later removed
the figure of Mme Proudhon from the background; see MACK: Gustave Courbet, objects and curiosities, the screen is another matter. A
pp.195-7 and pls. 43 and 44. sophisticated work in the manner of Korin and Kenzan,23
7 Review of the Salon in L'Illustration [6th June 1868]; quoted in A. TABARANT:
Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris [19471, p.149, where similar opinions are also cited.
8 Review of the Salon in La Gironde [9th June 1868]; quoted in R. BACOU:
16 F. NORDSTR6M: 'Baudelaire and Diirer's Melencolia I, A Study of a Portrait
Odilon Redon, Geneva [1956], I, p.45.
9 E. ZOLA: Salons, ed. F. w. J. HEMMINGS and R. J. NIESS, Geneva [1959], p.125; of Baudelaire by Manet', in P. BJURSTROM, et al.: Contributions to the History and
from a review of the Salon in L'Evenement Illustrie[Ioth May 1868]. Theory of Art, Uppsala [1967], pp.148-60.
10 H. THULIE: 'Du Roman: Description', Rialisme, No.3 [I5th January 18571, 17 JAMOT and WILDENSTEIN: Manet, No.265; appropriately only a butterfly and
p.38. On the importance of the 'milieu' for these writers, including Zola a few stalks, deftly indicated, are visible.
himself, see M. CROUZET: Un Miconnu du Rialisme: Duranty, Paris [I964], pp. 18 It appeared initially in the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [1st January 1867]. Zola's
652-62. earliest discussion of Manet was in a review of the Salon in L'Evinement [7th
11 E. DURANTY: 'R6flexions d'un bourgeois sur le salon de peinture', Gazette des May 1866]; his Salons, pp.64-9. That too was reprinted in pamphlet form, in
Beaux-Arts, XV [1877]; quoted in CROUZET: Un Meconnu du Rialisme, p.66o. the summer of 1866. See F. W. J. HEMMINGs: 'Emile Zola critique d'art', ibid.,
12 JAMOT and WILDENSTEIN: Manet, I, pp.40-I. See also G. JEDLICKA: Edouard pp.15-19, and I. M. EBIN: 'Manet and Zola', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXVII
Manet, Zurich [194I], pp.Io0-02. For the later portraits, see P.-.A LEMOISNE: [ 9451, PP-358-64*
Degas et son oeuvre, Paris [1946-9], No.517, and L. VENTURI: Cizanne, son art, son 19 JAMOT and WILDENSTEIN: Manet, No.Io3. See N. G. SANDBLAD: Manet, Three
oeuvre, Paris [1936], No.692. Studies in Artistic Conception, Lund [19541, PP-75-77 and fig.21.
13 JAMOT and WILDENSTEIN: Manet, I, p.39.
20 The page shown at the right is a chapter opening; only the small portrait
14 Undated letter to Theodore Duret; quoted and dated to February I868 generally placed at the top of that page is absent. By 1868 seven volumes of
in j. REWALD: Cizanne et Zola, Paris [1936], p.6i. The date 2gth November the Histoire des peintres had appeared.
1868, given in ibid., n.5, was later retracted by Rewald; see FAISON: 'Manet's
21 T. REFF: 'Manet and Blanc's "Histoire des Peintres" ', THE BURLINGTON
Portrait of Zola', p.I68, n.5. TABARANT (Manet et ses oeuvres, p.145) cites no MAGAZINE, CXII [1970], pp.456-58.
evidence to support his statement that the background was painted in Zola's 2s See H. MUNSTERBERG: The Ceramic Art of Japan, Rutland [1964], pl.I4o for
apartment. Nor does J. ADHEIMAR, who identifies it as the apartment on the the form, and pl.I132 for the decoration. According to ADHEMAR ('Le Cabinet
rue Moncy where Zola lived in 1867-68: 'Le Cabinet de travail de Zola', de travail de Zola', pp.287-88) the inkwell belonged to Zola and was also used
Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LVI [1960], p.287. in Cezanne's Black Clock (VENTURI: Cizanne, No.69), painted in Zola's
15 See M. ROSKILL: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and the Impressionist Circle, Greenwich, apartment about 1870.
Conn. [1970], PP.53-55 and 8o-81. 23 See B. LEACH: Kenzan and His Tradition, New York [1966], pl.42, and J. M.

36

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 34-
33. 1

35.

36.
33. The Wrestler Onaruto .Nadaemon of Awa
Province, by Utagawa Kuniaki II.
Colour woodcut, 37-2 by 25'7 cm.
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

34. The Drinkers, by Celestin Nanteuil

after Velazquez's picture. Litho-
graph, 24'5 by 35-2 cm. (Bibliothbque
Nationale, Paris.)

35. Olympia, by Edouard Manet. Canvas,

130-5 by 190 cm. (Musee du Louvre.)

36. A Collection of Drawings, by Leopold

Boilly. Canvas, 64 by 52 cm. (Form-
erly Coll. Chaix d'Est-Anges, Paris.)

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37. 38.

37. At the Inn of Mother Anthony, by Auguste Renoir. Canvas, 195 by 130 cm. (National-
museum, Stockholm.)

38. Detail from Portrait of Emile Zola, showing the peacock feathers, by Edouard Manet.
(Musec du Louvre.)

39. Emile Zola in His Study. Detail from a photograph by Dornac, c.1896. (Bibliothbque
Nationale, Paris.)

40. Detail from Two Courtesans, showing the seated figure, by Kitagawa Toyomaro. (Coll.
Mr and Mrs Jackson Burke, New York.)

40.
391

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 MANETI SPORTRAITOFZOLA

its sparse forms disposed in a pattern of delicate beauty

Olympia's forehead that is not present in the p
and almost abstract flatness, it would have meant farrespect
that less to it is like Manet's etchings of Olympia
the author of the melodramatic novels Madeleine cularly and
Firat in their later, darker states; the one that s
Therese Raquin than to the painter who had already assimi-
illustrate Zola's booklet would obviously be app
lated these aspects ofJapanese art into his own.24
here; yet its size, like the other etching's, is far too
More conspicuous than the screen, and morework
intriguing
reproduced has also been called a wash d
as images, are the three works that appear together, loosely
but it is none of those now known and is unlik
inserted in a single frame, above Zola's desk (Fig.32).
existed Com-
without margins; this suggests instead
positionally the tiny figures in them, naked or in foreign Also recognizable is the replica of
photograph.
costume, make his large, correctly dressed formearly
appear by
painting The Drinkers, despite the fact that i
contrast still more dignified and monumental. Indeed, in frame and overlapped by the Olymp
cepted by the
their piquant silhouettes and abrupt colour changes,only four theirof its nine figures are shown, and th
suggestive gestures and glances, they display precisely the
pletely. Almost invariably identified as Goya's
kind of animation he seems so studiously to repress.etching The after the Velazquez, it lacks the incisi
inspiration for Manet's use of the framed picture as a com-
quality of that print and, as one writer has observ
positional and expressive device has been sought closely
in Poussin's
resembles a charcoal drawing.31 But if M
Self-Portrait in the Louvre, whose background consists
such of
a drawing on a visit to the Prado in Augu
framed, overlapping pictures, though all but one has faces the
not survived, whereas COlestin Nanteuil's
wall.25 The resemblance, however, is not very close, certain-
(Fig.34), published a decade earlier,32 is render
ly not as close as in a recent work by Degas,same withvelvety
whom black tones and is moreover of th
Manet was intimately acquainted at this time.mensions In The Col- as the reproduction in question. The t
lector of Prints (Fig.3o), painted in 1866,26 the figure turns to
a Japanese colour woodcut, is always referred to a
the left rather than the right and is more shrewdly portrait charac-
by Utamaro or Kunisada, despite the
terized, but he wears similar attire and plays the same part
fifteen years ago that it is The Wrestler Onaruto N
in the composition. Surrounded by objects more Awa revealing
Provinceof by Kuniaki II (Fig.33), a later Ukiyo-e
his thoughts than he himself, he sits in both pictures
Manet beside
has preserved its colour harmony, only cha
a table covered with papers and books and holds a print
kimono fromor blue to reddish brown, but he has si
book he has just been studying. Moreover, he is still
seen further
in both its already simple forms. And not on
against a background divided at the left by a long of the vertical
smaller area in which he had to work, but
form and at the upper right by a rectangular one, coulda picture
thereby fit those forms into patterns as int
frame in which several kinds of printed matter thehaveone been
that links the light and dark shapes of
pillow and
inserted. In The Collector of Prints, these are described only the wrestler's coat where the two in
generically, as familiar types of graphic material this
- envelopes,
playful manipulation of shapes, at once p
calling cards, portrait photographs - or as exotic negative,
types valued colourful and monochromatic, he seem
for their novel colour harmonies - fragmentsanticipate
of Japanese Cubism.
textiles, strikingly juxtaposed - and as such they demonstrate
Collectively the three prints may allude, like the
his fascination with every form of graphic invention.27
volume he holds, to Zola's current interest in ar
In the portrait of Zola, however, the prints he arehad
fewer,
written reviews of the last two Salons as w
larger, and rendered in greater detail, thus inviting inter-
booklet on Manet, and was acquainted with man
pretation of their meaning for the picture as the a whole. But
Caf6 Guerbois.34 Individually they speak of m
this requires first that they be identified correctly.
interests and preferences, some shared with Ma
If the reproduction of Olympia (Fig.35) is the most easily
recognized of the three, its medium is the most obscure. It is
usually described as a sepia photograph, though its tonality
photograph can be determined in relation to that of the Japan
below, note 33.
is black and grey, its apparent size corresponds to none of
29 j. HARRIS: Edouard Manet, Graphic Works, New York [1970o], N
the known early photographs,28 and it shows a curl on
30 c. WHEELER:
probably Manet,
the most An Essay,
perceptive studyWashington [1930], P.34;
of the background rarely
to appear cited,
thus far.this is
An unpublished water-colour study for Olympia of roughly the right dimen-
sions, 29 by 4o cm., did figure in the Ausstellung Edouard Manet, Galerie
KLONER: The Influence of Japanese Prints on Edouard Manet and Paul Gauguin,
Matthiesen,
paraventBerlin
Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University [1968], p.97. A 'petit unknown. [February-March 1928], No.xo, but its whereabouts are
chinois'
was listed in the inventory of Manet's studio in 1883; see JAMOT and WILDEN-
31 WHEELER: Manet, p.34. For the etching, see T. HARRIS: Goya, Engravings and
STEIN: Manet, I, p.io6.
Lithographs, Oxford [1964], II, No.4. Its size is also much larger than that of
24 See SANDBLAD: Manet, pp.8 1-7, and the critique of that discussion in KLONER:
the reproduction in Manet's portrait; see below, note 33-
Influence of Japanese Prints, pp. 126-35.
32 In London[
25 A. BLUNT: The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin, A Critical Catalogue, El Real Museo1966],
de Madridy la Joyas de la Pintura en Espania, Madrid [18551].
See c. B. CURTIS: Velazquez and Murillo, New York [1883], pp.'8 and 367-8. I
No.2. On its relation to the portrait of Zola, see G. HOPP: Edouard Manet,
am indebted Farbe
to Mlle Nicole Villa of the Bibliothbque Nationale for its dimen-
und Bildgestalt, Berlin [1968], p.I I and n.68. sions.
26 LEMOISNE: Degas et son oeuvre, No. 138; see also ibid., I, PP.51-3 on hisInfluence
33 KLONER: rela- ofJapanese Prints, PP-95-7 and 248, n.6. It was first identi-
tionship with Manet.
fied in E. P. WIESE: Source Problems in Manet's Early Painting, Ph.D. dissertation
27 T. REFF: 'The Pictures within Degas's Pictures', Metropolitan Museum Journal,
I [1968], pp.131-3. Harvard University [I959], p.228. Since its size is known - as WHEELER (Manet,
P-34) suspected, it is a typical 'oban', 37'3 by 25'7 cm. - the sizes of the Olympia
28 On these in general, see TABARANT: Manet et ses oeuvres, pp.518-I19.
photograph Manet's
and the Drinkers lithograph are, in proportion, 24-8 by 36-2 cm.
photograph, in an album now in the possession of Mrs Mina and Curtiss,
24-5 byBethel
33'9 cm., respectively.
Conn., is too small; Lochard's, in an album now in the Bibliothbque Nationale,
34 HEMMINGs: 'Emile Zola critique d'art', pp.14-22. H. and J. ADHEMAR: 'Zola
Paris, is still smaller; Godet's, if he took one, is not known. The size of the
et la peinture', Arts, Spectacles, No.389 [I2th-I8th December 1952], p.10o.

39

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 MANET'S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

more characteristic of the latter. TheChesneau

reproduction ofof
mentions him as one the writers and artists who
Olympia is, paradoxically, the one mostcollected
clearly related
oriental to time,42 but only two such prints
art at the
Zola himself; for of all the works he discussed and noin his booklet,
paintings figured in the sales of his collection and that
none was more difficult to explain and defend of histhan
widow,43
that and the only ones George Moore saw in
one,
which had been attacked on both moral and aesthetic visiting him at Medan were minor works 'depicting furious
fornications'.44 Like the screen, the colour woodcut would
grounds at the Salon of I865, yet of none was he more cer-
tain it was 'son chef-d'ceuvre . . . la chair et le sang du peintreprobably
. . . have seemed too subtle in colouring, too abstract
l'expression complete de son temperament'.35 Thus it was asin form, to appeal to the writer whose own style was a
ap-
propriate for Manet to reproduce Olympia in a portrait vigorous,
of even brutal naturalism. Significantly his one
Zola painted in February i868 as it had been for him critical to reference to Japanese art occurs in a passage on
provide an etching of it for the latter's booklet nine months Manet and in a form that once again suggests his influence:
earlier. Perhaps even more so, since Zola's recent novel it is an invitation to compare the latter's 'peinture simplifile'
Therese Raquin was in some respects directly influenced with by 'les gravures japonaises qui lui ressemblent par leur ellgance
Olympia, as one hostile critic realized at the time: 'll voitetrange la et leurs taches magnifiques'.45 Certainly Zola's apprecia-
femme comme M. Manet la peint, couleur de boue avec des maquil- tion of that art was not as great, even among writers, as the
lages roses.'36 Goncourts' or Philippe Burty's, just as his admiration for
The lithograph of Velazquez's Drinkers can also be related Spanish art was not as keen as Gautier's or Baudelaire's. Nor
to Zola, but less exclusively in terms of his own opinions was it, obviously, as profound as that of Manet himself,
than of those then current, which he presumably shared. whose early works were so much indebted to Velazquez's -
The Spanish master was generally regarded, with Cara- among them The Drinkers, on which The Old Musician was
vaggio and one or two others, as a supreme example largely of based46 - that Zola felt obliged to state: 'Ses toiles ont
realism in art: 'C'Itait le regne des naturalistes', Gautier ex- un accent trop individuel pour qu'on veuille ne trouver en lui qu'un
plained, employing the very term Zola would soon adopt bdtard de Velasquez et de Goya.'47 Similarly, if the Japanese
print and screen in the portrait of Zola are in effect Manet's
for himself,
moddle '[ils] se
qu'ils avaient contentaient
devant les yeux.'37de
Andrendre avec une
The Drinkers wasenergie inte.ise le earliest known copies of oriental art, he had already in-
considered his masterpiece, a 'prodigue de realite' palpable, de cluded a Japanese album in his portrait of Astruc and had
naturalisme ipais, brutal et violent', according to Blanc's Histoire assimilated many stylistic features of that art in such works
des Peintres.38 If the volume on the Spanish school cannot be as The Street Singer and Olympia itself.48 That the three prints
the one that Zola is shown reading in Manet's portrait, he in the portrait reflect Manet's taste much more than Zola's
did read a translation of Stirling-Maxwell's monograph on might seem evident enough without a lengthy demonstra-
Velazquez, for he reviewed it, together with one on Rem- tion, were it not that several writers have insisted that 'le mur
brandt, in October I866.39 Other than labelling the two ne nous en dit pas moins que la table sur les occupations et les goats
artists 'les deux puissants geinies', however, this brief review says du moddle', or that 'Sie beziehen sich auf bestimmte Interessen-
little; and that little probably reflects the influence of Manet, gebiete des Dichters'.49
with whom Zola had become friendly some months earlier. 40 If not as a statement of Zola's specific interests in art, can
Both the uncharacteristic theme of his review - 'J'aurais these prints be seen as a 'pictorial ars poetica', demonstrating
voulu une analyse plus penitrante .. . une itude plus artistique' - and
the unprecedented delay in its publication - fifteen months
after the book appeared4 - suggest such an influence. 42 E. CHESNEAU: 'Le Japon ' Paris', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XVIII [1878], p.387.
Of Zola's interest in Japanese prints, like the one by
See also L. BE.NE.DITE: 'Whistler (troisieme article)', ibid., XXXIV [19051, PP.
Kuniaki II in his portrait, there is even less evidence. 142-44.
43 Instead they contained many oriental ceramics, decorative objects, an
curiosities. See Succession de M. Emile Zola, H6tel Drouot [9th-13th Marc
1903], lots Ioo-i, 71-9o0, and 236-89, and Succession de Mme Emile Zola, H6t
Drouot [9th-ioth November 1925], lots 131-8; also ADHAMAR: 'Le Cabinet d
travail de Zola', PP.293-95-
35 ZOLA: Salons, P.97; from the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [ Ist January 1867].
36 L. ULBACH: 'La Litt6rature putride', Le Figaro [23rd January 1868]; reprinted44 G. MOORE: Confessions of a Young Man, London [1928]; quoted in FAISON
in E. ZOLA: Oeuvres completes, ed. H. MITTERAND, Paris [1966-70], I, p.675. See 'Manet's Portrait of Zola', p.i66. See also the memoirs of Alexis and Maupas
also H. MITTERAND: Emile Zola journaliste, Paris [1962], p.71, and M. CLAVERIE:
sant, and the
Zola', p.289 andwoodcut
fig.I. by Desmoulin, in ADHE.MAR: 'Le Cabinet de travail de
'Th6rese Raquin, ou les Atrides dans la boutique du Pont-Neuf', Cahiers
Naturalistes, XIV [1968], p.I45, for the influence of Olympia on Zola's imagery. 45 ZOLA: Salons, p.91; from the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [ist January 1867]. Else-
where, he mentions the kimono, but not the fans, in Monet's Japonnerie and the
37 T. GAUTIER, A. HOUSSAYE, and P. DE SAINT-VICTOR: Les Dieux et les demi-dieux
de la peinture, Paris [1864], pp.267-8; unsigned, but definitely by Gautier, sincescreen, but not the print, in his own portrait; ibid., pp.195 and 125. And
parts of this chapter repeat verbatim parts of his essay on Velazquez in Tableauxapropos of the 'e'lRgances itranges' in Degas's Mlle Fiocre, he thinks again of 'ces
d la plume, Paris [i88o], pp.215-18 (first published in 1862). gravures japonaises, si artistiques dans la simpliciti de leurs tons'; ibid., pp. I38-39.
38 Ecole espagnole, Paris [1869], 'Velazquez', p.4. This installment was first 46 Manet and Spain, ed. j. ISAACSON, Museum of Art, University of Michigan
published in 1852; see REFF: 'Manet and Blanc's "Histoire des Peintres"', [I9th January-2nd March 1969], No. I I, and passim for other examples.
p.458, n.34. 47 ZOLA: Salons, P-93; from the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [ist January 1867]. Else-
where, he cites Velazquez simply as an admired master, along with Veronese,
3s In Le Salut Public [9th October i866]; ZOLA: Oeuvres complites, X, p.653. His
Rubens, and Rembrandt; ibid., pp.128, 150, and 163.
review in L'Evinement [I5th October 1866] was nearly identical; ibid., p.661.
STIRLING-MAXWELL too had stressed the 'force of character' and 'strength of 48 See above, notes 19 and 24.
49 JAMOT and WILDENSTEIN: Manet, I, p.39, and HOPP: Edouard Manet, pp.43-4,
colouring' of The Drinkers; Velazquez and His Works, London [I8551, PP.92-94-
respectively. More plausible is the explanation of w. HOFMANN (Jana, Mythos
40 HEMMINGS: 'Emile Zola critique d'art', p. 17. For the parallel case of Cezanne's
influence on him, see REWALD: Cezanne et Zola, pp.39-40. und Wirklichkeit, Cologne [19731, p.4o) that 'diese Attribute berichten iiber Zolas
mannigfache Erfahrungsquellen', especially since the influence of visual art on his
41 Bibliographie de la France [22nd July 1865], No.6504. Zola's column, 'Livres
d'aujourd'hui et de demain', was devoted precisely to the latest publications fiction of the x86o's is becoming apparent; see above, note 36, and below,
and literary gossip, as he himself explained in L'Evinement [Ist February 1866]; note 90. However, there is no evidence that he had already begun by then to
Oeuvres compldtes, X, p.346. employ it as documentation in the way he later did.

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 MANET'S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

an aesthetic programme he shared with Manet?5o

as if the Seen inconfronting the
naked female
those terms, they do indeed form astudy'characteristic trinity' of St Anthon
were a Temptation
both historically and stylistically; for just as Thewe
in retrospect Drinkers
may recognize to wha
tone
stands for traditional European art, The he adopted
Wrestler as a journalist and t
for recently
discovered Japanese art, and Olympia for the
revealed as challenging,
a novelist support such an i
eclectic art of modernism, so the first
is norepresents Manet's
evidence that Manet recognized th
commitment to realism, the secondto his fascination
play with
the literary critic in alluding t
'tachisme', and the third his impressivelikely that
synthesis of in Olympia's
the two.51 altered gl
Moreover, these correspond to theexpressing,
terms in which
with Zola
a visual wit altoget
described that synthesis, stressing on him,59 the appreciation
the one hand 'les verites that had l
portrait
de la lumiere et de l'ombre, les re'alitis des to
objets et begin
des with. This is confir
creatures',
he contrived,
and on the other 'une grande simpliciti, presque point deby a similar alteration or
ditails,
un ensemble de taches justes et dilicates'.52
to havePerceptive
two of as it figures
the is, in the ot
however, Zola's account is not adequate to the
gesture. Thecomplexity
heavy-set wrestler in K
of Manet's achievement; and thus to conclude
only looks at that
but the
turns his whole hu
Zola, as
latter's portrait of him 'does not reproduce if in
Zola homage
so much as or readiness to
Zola's description of Manet's art'53 is necessarily
young Bacchusto inignore
The Drinkers looks t
just those iconographic sources and elements of the portrait
down, toward Zola, while crowning o
that Zola ignored in discussing it and the artist's
rather work in
than slightly up as in Nanteu
general. In the same way, to contend juxtaposing
that the portrait does
the standing wrestler an
not represent Zola so much as the one nature of hisof
an image mental
strength and comba
processes, the unframed, overlapping grace
prints and
hovering above - Manet evide
sensuality
him making visible 'in latenter Aktivitdtsubtle
seine freie, individuelle
compliment to the subject of his
Wahl',54 is to overlook the subtle waysthe
in which
god oftheir imagery
revelry, who is after all cro
reflects Manet's own inventiveness crowning
and wit. About these,
a mortal - and as we shall see
Zola is not an adequate source, since beinghe adopts -both
crowned has a as
similar significa
tactic and as aesthetic an anti-intellectual
to decide. position:
Perhaps 'Il
thisn'aimage of drunk
seen, with
jamais fait la sottise, commise par tant d'autres, those
de vouloir of the professional
mettre
des idles dans sa peinture . .. S'il assemble plusieurs
courtesan, objets ou
as introducing in the suitab
glimpse
plusieurs figures, il est seulement guidi dans of the
son choix par coarse
le desir life Zola was s
d'obtenir de belles taches, de belles oppositions.'55
writer, a glimpse moreover that heigh
If Zola had looked more closely atof
the
hisreproduction of
own chosen image.61
Olympia in his portrait, he would have observed that her
Whatever its personal connotations
glance is directed toward him, ratherphor, than the
toward
groupus as
of it is
framed, overlappin
in the original, thus acknowledgingpictorial his gallant efforts to
motif to a definite historical
defend her reputation. Knowing trompe-l'oeil that many spectators
still life. If Manet has no
the
'n'auraient pas iti fdche's d'y decouvrir une hard-edge
intention precision
obscene', he had typical of th
denied that there was any intention: 'll vousfaltait
clearly takenunefemme
pains to identify the t
nue, et vous avez choisi Olympia, la premiere venue
graph, ... Qu'est-ceand
lithograph, que colour woodcu
tout cela veut dire? vous ne le savez guere, ni moi non
between theplus.'56 Thus
eggshell and white mats of
the defensive tactic he had adopted ally
was athe very
form one that
of popular art, a tour defor
later prevented him from recognizing the significance of
Manet's gesture. Going still further, 57
one writerNana,
HOFMANN: has Mythos
seen in
und Wirklichkeit, p.29.
the latter an allusion to Zola's preoccupation with
58 See, for example, his the
article in La Tribune [
courtesan and the fatal woman in hiscourtesan
own work in modern
at thesociety
time, and his novel Madele
whose femme fatale heroine is identified with a
cited in HOFMANN: Nana, Mythos und Wirklichkeit, p
59 Another example, exactly contemporary, is the
50 NOSZLOPY ('Edouard Manet's "Ars Poetica" ',Th6odore
p.184) defines
Duret;this phrase
JAMOT andasWILDENSTEIN: Mane
'a pictorial communication about some of the practical
have beenand theoretical
more prob-
conventional, since Duret, fearing t
lems of contemporary art', but fails to specify those problems in terms of the
of Manet's name would provoke, asked him Lo 'effacer
portrait's iconography.
and to 'signer invisiblement dans l'ombre', so that he c
51 SANDBLAD: Manet, pp.105-07. NOSZLOPY ('Edouard
que c'estManet's
un Goya, "Ars Poetica" ou
un Regnault ', un Fortuny'; undate
pp.189 and 184) falsely accuses Sandblad of interpreting
in TABARANT: the Manet
three et works as
ses oeuvres, p. 151. Inspired b
'symbolizing the stages of Manet's pictorial development'.
artist he admired, Manet must have replaced the
62 ZOLA: Salons, pp.98 and 91; from the Revue du XIXe
one Siecle
that [ist Januray
Duret's cane now 1867].
points to, which clear
53 SANDBLAD: Manet, p. 176, n.71. This attempt to compromise
likewise invertedwish the
and contro-with meaning, on Go
charged
versial thesis of FAISON ('Manet's Portrait of Zola', p.168)
of Alba; see that the latter FITZ-GERALD:
x. DESPARMET is in L'Oeuvre p
effect a self-portrait, ignores his more reasonable conclusion
No.374, (p.166) that it is
also No.361.
'more highly charged with Manet's personality60 than
The with
peasantZola's'.
at the far right of the fragment M
54 IOPP: Edouard Manet, p. I 12.
be looking to the left, rather than toward us as in
55 ZOLA: Salons, p.91; from the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [1st it
61 That January 1867].at
was painted On the suggestion, and th
Zola's
two aspects of this position, see T. REFF: 'The Meaning
appearance' of byManet's Olympia',
the already notorious writer, is c
Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXIII [1964], pp. I1-I12.him, undated but probably February 1868; quoted in
56 ZOLA: Salons, pp.97-8; from the Revue du XIXe Sidcle [Ist
Manet, January 1867]. For
I, p.83.
a more positive view of this stress on 'pure optical immanence',
62 See the examples seeillustrated
G. PICON:in M. FARE: La Natu
'Zola's Painters', Yale French Studies, No.42 [1969], pp.I28-30.
[1962], II, pls.i51-53, 446, 448-51, and 453.

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 MANET S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

importance often practised by provincial

derivation of the glance motif artists, this
from some such graphic work
seems certain.
specialized genre also appealed around 18oo00 to a well-
The relevance
known painter, Boilly.63 His Collection ofofDrawings
that tradition for (Fig.36),
Manet's circle is con-
firmed in a striking manner
an example that corresponds more closely than many others by Renoir's At the Inn of Mother
to Manet's group, may have been
Anthonyknown toless
(Fig.37), painted the latter
than two years earlier;74 in
fact, the newspaper
through his friendship with Baudelaire; 4 moreover,L'Evenement,Boilly's
where Zola's articles on
him first appeared,
influence on one of his earlier paintings has figures
beenprominently
shown.65 in it. On the wall
behind the this
Manet's innovation was to incorporate three men shown in conversation
popular traditionare caricatures
into portraiture, which often madeclearly aligned
use of with the
them compositionally,
background which Renoir
picture as an iconographic device later recalled having
without copied from those
conceiving it actually
as a drawn there,
whoseas
trompe-l'oeil.6 In such recent works naivete
Degas's'pleasedJames
[him] infinitely'.75
TissotAbout in the most
conspicuous
an Artist's Studio and Fantin-Latour's one he added:
Homage to 'Moi-mime
Delacroix, j'y avais dessin6 la
where Manet himself appears, pictures play
silhouette de Miirger, que jean important
reproduisis dans ma toile, en haut a
part in defining the social or professional gauche.'76 To honour in this way the author
ambience;67 andofin the Scenes de
his own portrait of Astruc, a large la Vie de Boheme, the
painting - orbohemian par excellence
a mirror or who had
interior view functioning like one 'discovered'
- fills around
half I850the
the inn at Marlotte where Renoir
composi-
tion.68 and Sisley later stayed," and to reproduce on the wall beside
To this innovation he has added another, the witty use of him a verse from his most popular song,'7 was obviously
gesture and glance to sharpen the trompe-l'oeil's thrust as appropriate. It was also prophetic of Manet's dependence on
imagery; for even the more sophisticated examples by Boilly caricatures in paying homage to Zola; for however Miirger
are conceived primarily as technical accomplishments and looked in Renoir's caricature,79 in the painting he turns,
lack such a thrust. Here Manet may have drawn on another, like the 'real' figures beside him, to look at the seated figure
still more popular, pictorial tradition, that of social satire of Sisley, thus anticipating the trio of glances directed
and political caricature; in these more highly charged toward Zola in Manet's portrait. If the latter did indeed owe
designs the background figure often looks at or gestures something to Renoir, he cancelled the debt three years later
toward the principal ones. In Hogarth's Marriage d la Mode, by painting a still life that has rightly been called a 'hommage
Plate I, among the pictures of murder and martyrdom a Manet', not only because it reproduces one of his etchings,
hanging above the doomed couple is Caravaggio's Medusa, a copy after Velazquez, but because its other objects can
staring down ominously at them.69 In Daumier's lithograph also be associated with specific works by him, including the
Souvenirs, the old bachelor or widower stares into space, lost portrait of Zola.80 It is in the work of Degas and Pissarro,
in revery, while the young woman in the portrait above him however, that we find imitations of the special form of
smiles down wistfully.70 And in one of Cham's caricatures of picture within a picture that Manet introduced there.
'Les Folies de la Commune', the destructive Communard, Within a year or two Degas invented for the background of
flaming torch in hand, turns toward an image of Marat, his portrait of the 'cellist Pillet a pseudo-Romantic litho-
who stares back fiercely.71 Given the Realists' fascination graph showing a group of famous musicians and writers,
with popular imagery and Manet's own extensive borrowing most of whom face or turn toward their younger colleague
from it in the I860's72 - significantly, the earliest background in evident admiration.81 And a few years later Pissarro
picture in his ceuvre occurs in a print with a popular theme reproduced in his portrait of C6zanne recent newspaper
and source and appears to be a popular print itself73 - his caricatures of Courbet and Adolphe Thiers, placing them in
such a way that they appear to turn toward and salute the
modest yet imposing artist seated between them.82
63 Ibid., I, pp.243-44. H. HARRISSE: L.-L. Boilly, Paris [1898], pp. 137-39.
64 It was then in the collection of Gustave Chaix d'Est-Ange, the lawyer who
defended Baudelaire in the famous trial of 1857; see HARRISSE: L.-L. Boilly, 74 F. DAULTE: Auguste Renoir, Lausanne [1971-], I, No.2o.
No.580, and J. DU TEIL: 'La Collection Chaix d'Est-Ange', Les Arts, No.67 S 5 A. VOLLARD: Auguste Renoir, Paris [I920], pp.40-41. The influence of Courbet,
evident in this taste for bohemianism and popular imagery, is also seen in the
[July I907], pp.32 and 34.
65 A. G. BARSKAYA: 'A Propos de sources des oeuvres de jeunesse d'Edouard way the interior is painted; see M. DRUCKER: Renoir, Paris [i1944], pl.26.
76 VOLLARD: Auguste Renoir, p.41.
Manet', The Works in the National Hermitage, Western European Art, VIII [n.d.,
77 A. MOSS and E. MARVEL: The Legend of the Latin Quarter, New York [1946], pp.
1963?], pp.o19-23 and 26o-61.
139-40, 153, 164-65, 174, and 179. J. REWALD: The History of Impressionism,
66 In some self-portraits, however, the artist displays an illusionistically ren-
dered example of his work; see L. GOLDSCHEIDER: Five Hundred Self-Portraits, rev. ed., New York [1961], pp. 121 and 133-34.
78 'Et Musette, qui n'est plus elle, / Disait que je n'e'tais plus moi.' H. MORGER:
Vienna [I937], pls.xI14, 229, 255, 283, and 334. Schnes de la vie de Bohame, Calmann-L6vy ed., Paris [n.d., first ed. 1851], pp.
67 LEMOISNE: Degas et son oeuvre, No.175; see REFF: 'Pictures within Degas's
Pictures', pp.133-40. A. JULLIEN: Fantin-Latour, Paris [90o9], pp.62-65. 302-03, fifth stanza. For photographs of and documentation on the picture,
68 See above, note 19, and HOPP: Edouard Manet, PP.33-39, especially p.35, n.34.
I am indebted to Dr Carlo Derkert, Curator of Paintings at the National-
69 R. PAULSON: Hogarth's Graphic Works, rev. ed., New Haven [1970], I, p.269 museum, Stockholm.
and II, pl.268. Other examples are Before and After; ibid., I, pp.171-72 and 79
II, According to Moss and MARVEL (Legend of the Latin Quarter, p. 199) it was still
pls.152 and 153. visible 'until fairly recently', but according to VOLLARD (Auguste Renoir, p.41)
70 L. DELTEIL: Honore Daumier (Le Peintre-graveur illustri, XX-XXIX), Paris all the caricatures were removed at the painter Regnault's insistence.
80 s. L. FAISON, JNR: 'Renoir's Hommage " Manet', in Intuition und Kunstwissen-
[1925-30], No.579. See also the satires of prosperous burghers standing below
schaft, Festschrifti fir Hanns Swarzenski, ed. P. BLOCH, et al., Berlin [19731, PP-
their portraits at the Salon; ibid., Nos.918 and 2965.
71 s. LAMBERT: The Franco-Prussian War and the Commune in Caricature, r87o-7r,571-8.
London [1971], No.136. Other examples are Nos.90o and 97. 81 LEMOISNE: Degas et son oeuvre, No.I88. See REFF: 'Pictures within Degas's
Pictures', pp. I47-50.
72 A. HANSON: 'Popular Imagery and the Work of Edouard Manet', in French
82 T. REFF: 'PiSSarro's Portrait of Cezanne', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CIX
I9th Century Painting and Literature, ed. U. Finke, Manchester [1972], pp.'133-63.
[1967], pp.627-33. On Gauguin's use of a similar motif, possibly inspired by
73 It is the Frontispiece for an Edition of Etchings, 1862; HARRIS: Edouard Manet,
No.38, See T. REFF: 'The Symbolism of Manet's Frontispiece Etchings', THE Manet's, in a portrait of c. 887, see ROSKILL: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and the Imn-
BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CIV [1962], pp.182-86. pressionist Circle, pp.240-4I.

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 MANET'S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

However clearly related to pictorial traditions own

in portrait-
portrait. Writing of it in I868, he merely mentioned in
ure, still life, and caricature, Manet's conception ofcadres
passing 'les thedu fond' and 'le charmant paravent japonais',
background picture as an imaginative device then also
declinedhas
to dwell on 'des accessoires et des livres qui
precedents and parallels in contemporary literature.
trainent For ittable',
sur la is preferring instead to focus on 'la main
above all in the realist novel of his time, strongly
placle concerned
sur un genou du personnage; c'est une merveille d'execution'.91
with the detailed description of the 'milieu' bothYetasevensetting
here he was following a Romantic precedent, one
and metaphor for its fictional characters, that he the
would picture
later follow on a larger scale in L'Oeuvre - that of
plays a similar role.83 In the opening pages of Germinie
Balzac's famous story 'Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu', where
Lacerteux, the Goncourt brothers subtly characterize
the artistMlle de
is portrayed as tragically incapable of achieving
Verandeuil's life of austerity and devotion to in a thedespotic
whole work the perfection he achieves in one frag-
father simply by describing the musty, antiquated ment.92 Fordecora-
he continues with evident regret, 'Si le portrait
tions in her apartment; then they dwell on a male portrait
entier avait pu itre pousse au point o" en est cette main, la foule
hanging above her bed: 'Le portrait semblait se refltter
elle-mWme sur
eat crieelle
au chef-d'oauvre.'93
Another
comme le visage d'un pere sur le visage d'une fille . . . [Ii] element
s'inclinait of clearly symbolic significance that
sur la malade, et semblait du regard peser sur elle.'84 Translated
escaped Zola, as it has every subsequent writer but one,94
into prose, it is the very device employed in Manet's
is the portrait.
peacock feathers some distance above his head (Fig.
More important, it also occurs in one of Zola's early
38). Lessnovels,
visible today than in old photographs taken before
in a passage possibly inspired by Germinie Lacerteux, which
the paint he
had darkened,95 they appear first below the frame
admired greatly - in reviewing the book, he hadcontaining
singled out
the prints as two thin stalks that slant to the left,
'le portrait de Mlle de Verandeuil, un chapitre que je recommande'.85
echoing the quill pen slanting to the right; maintaining that
In the climactic scene of Therese Raquin, published two months
inclination, they appear a second time adjacent to the frame,
before he sat for Manet, Zola effectively conveys one Laurent's
merging into the larger frame at the upper left,96 the
desperate, guilt-ridden condition on the night ofother
his arching
marriage directly over Zola's head. Objects of exotic
to Therese by having him suddenly discover, origin,
in a shadowy
like the Japanese print and screen between which
corner of their bridal chamber, a portrait hethey himself had
stand, they may well have been inspired by the repre-
painted of the man they have drowned, whose faceofnow
sentation peacock feathers in Japanese art. In one of
Kiyonaga's woodcuts, the costumes of a famous courtesan
stares out like an hallucination: 'Son oauvre l'tonnait et l'6crasait
par sa laideur atroce; il y avait surtout les deux yeux blancs
and her flottant
attendants are ornamented with large peacocks, the
dans les orbites molles et jaundtres qui lui rappelaient trains
exactement
of whichles
are actual feathers sewn on;97 and in a
yeux pourris du noy6.'86 (Incidentally, it was thispainting
very bychapter
Toyomaro (Fig.40), the seated courtesan wears
in Thirese Raquin that inspired Degas's Intirieur,a costume
or Le strewn
Viol, with embroidered feathers, whose isolated
also painted in 1868.)s7 Behind both Zola's and the
forms Gon-
closely resemble the ones Manet has shown.98 The
court's treatment of the picture as a symbolic motive may
latter thus lie one of the earliest occurrences of a motif
become
Edgar Allan Poe's story 'The Oval Portrait', which
that would soon proliferate in the interiors of E. W. Godwin,
Baudelaire's translation had made accessible,
theand which
paintings of Albert Moore, and above all the decoration
likewise deals with the uncanny power of a of
portrait
Whistler's to
Peacock Room, which established its import-
ance for the whole Aesthetic Movement.99 One of the central
absorb and then project the life of its subject."ss Appropriately
the likeness is in each case of a deceased person, as of
symbols itthat
is in
movement, the peacock stood of course for
Hawthorne's story 'Edward Randolph's Portrait' and other
physical beauty. The same was true in France, where Buffon
Romantic texts where an effigy seems suddenlydescribed
to come it into
terms that apply singularly well to Manet's
life.89
conception of Zola: 'La taille grande, le port imposant, la
Despite this literary tradition, and the importance Zola
attached in other early novels to the description of paintings
and prints,90 he evidently paid little attention to those in his
mythes, Paris [197i], pp.197-98.
91 ZOLA: Salons, p. 125; from a review of the Salon in L'Evinement Illustri [I oth
83 Y. DANGELZER: La Description du milieu dans le romanfranfais de Balzac d Zola, May 1868].
Paris [1938], pp.23-24, 28-30, 34-35, 137-38, etc.
92 R. J. NIESS: Zola, Cizanne, and Manet, A Study of 'L'Oeuvre', Ann Arbor [1968],
84 E. and J. DE GONCOURT: Germinie Lacerteux, Paris [90go , first ed. 18651, pp.2-3. pp.6-9.
See DANGELZER: La Description du milieu, pp.140-41.
93 See above, note 91, and EBIN: 'Manet and Zola', PP.370-78, on Zola's
85 Le Salut Public [24th February 1865]; ZOLA: Oeuvres complites, X, pp.62-71. growing dissatisfaction with Manet's art.
"8 ThIdrse Raquin, Chap. XXI; published in December 1867; ZOLA: Oeuvres 94 WHEELER (Manet, P.34) refers to 'a vase with peacock feathers dimly seen at
compldtes, I, pp.61o-i I. On the role of this portrait and others described in the the back of the frame', but no vase is visible.
novel, see J. C. LAPP: Zola before the Rougon-Macquart, Toronto [1964], pp.96- 95 For example, the Godet photograph, taken before 1872, and even the
102.
Giraudon photograph of 1926; in Bibliotheque Nationale, Dc.3ooa fol.,
87 LEMOISNE: Degas et son oeuvre, No.348. See T. REFF: 'Degas's Vol.2. "Tableau de
Genre" ', Art Bulletin, LIV [1972], pp.319-20. 96 The picture in this frame is shown so incompletely and rendered so sum-
marily that it must have been conceived solely as a compositional device. I am
88 C.[1933,
Paris BAUDELAIRE: N.ouvelles
first ed. 18571, pp.299-303.histoires extraordinaires par Edgar Poe, ed. J. CR1-PET,
indebted to the Laboratoire de Recherche des Mus6es de France for a photo-
a9 LAPP: Zola before the Rougon-Macquart, p.96 and n.2. 'Edward Randolph's graph of the portrait taken without its frame.
Portrait' was not translated before I868, though 'The Prophetic Pictures', 97 C. HIRANO: Kiyonaga, Boston [1939], No.428; dated 1783.
another Hawthorne story cited by Lapp, appeared in E. A. SPOLL: Contes itranges 98 Japanese Painters of the Floating World, White Museum of Art, Ithaca, and
imitis d'Hawthorne, Paris [1866].
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica [April-June 1966], No.52; painted
90 For example, the symbolically significant prints of Pyramus and Thisbe and c.I8Io.
the Temptation of St Anthony in Madeleine Firat, which Zola dedicated to
99 E. ASLIN: The Aesthetic Movement, New York [1969], pp.83, 93, 97-98, and
Manet in September 1868, probably in return for his portrait. See LAPP: Zola I76. D. SUTTON: Nocturne, The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London [19631,
before the Rougon-Macquart, pp.124-25 and I27-30, and J. BORIE: Zola et les pp.82-85.

43

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 MANET S PORTRAIT OF ZOLA

Somerset
demarche fiere, la figure noble, les proportions (Figs.41-44,
du corps 47).1etThe tabernacle had been
eligantes
church lui
sveltes, tout ce qui annonce un itre de distinction by one ofdonne.'
a ite its vicars in the early nineteenth c
"00
Reverend
And what is more intriguing in relation to thisJohn Sanford
image of a(1777-1855). Sanford for
writer, Buffon then explained thatportant
in the collection
Middle of Ages
Italian art, part of which passed
to the late Lord Methuen and is at Corsham Court.2 He was
peacock feathers had a special use: 'On enformait des couronnes
vicar of Nynehead from
en guise de laurier, pour les poites appelis troubadours.' 101 181
Thex tosame
1818, but from at least 1832 until
1837 he lived in Florence, where he purchased a number of
idea appeared in more elaborate form in a popular encyclo-
paintings and some sculpture. Several of Sanford's catalogues of
pedia published in Manet's time: 'Au cours
his ownd'amour, les unfortunately,
collection exist but, poites none of them mention
recevaient, pour recompense, une couronne the faite de plumes
tabernacle. de della
It and two paon,Robbia terra-cottas (still in
qu'une dame du galant tribunal leur plagait elle-mime
Nynehead Church) seem to be o02
sur la tWte.' the only pieces of fifteenth-
Thus he has contrived to suggest, in terms consistent
century sculpture with
he purchased; the reason they are not men-
his realism, a modern version of the crowning
tioned in the of the is
catalogues trium-
probably that they were always in-
phant poet. tended by Sanford for Nynehead Church, and not for his own
It was no doubt a coincidence that the older, more collection.3

prosperous Zola, posing for a photograph around I890 in The door of the tabernacle is a painting on panel by Francesco
his rue de Bruxelles apartment (Fig.39), sat below a wall Granacci (Fig.46), and is similar to three paintings also by
Granacci in Oxford.4 The panels at Christ Church and in the
hanging embroidered in the Japanese style with two large National Museum of Wales bear the same seal on the reverse.5
peacocks, which appear to look down at him.1'3 Hovering
Since these pictures obviously belonged together, the panel
above his head, like the feathers in Manet's portrait, they cannot be the original door of the tabernacle, although it is
are a perfect example of life imitating art; and just as that remarkable that the subject, Christ the Redeemer, and the size are
idea can be traced back to Whistler, so the hanging itself so fitting. It was probably Sanford who added the Granacci to
reflects Zola's admiration, unusual in France at this time, the tabernacle, as his account book mentions a Granacci pur-
for the decorative effect of the Peacock Room. 04 It was not, chased in 1832, although without specifying subject or proven-
however, matched by an equally enlightened taste for ance.6 There is an inscription on the tabernacle, cut very lightly
Manet's art or for his own portrait. When Rett6 expressed and rather carelessly just above the eagle: OPUS MINO DA
a high opinion of it, Zola replied: 'Oui, ce portrait n'est pas FIESOLE 1483 (Fig.47). This is evidently not contemporary,
and the tabernacle does not resemble Mino da Fiesole's work. It
mal, et pourtant Manet ne fut pas un tris grand peintre.' "05 Huys-
is not known when the inscription was made, but Mino da
mans too was surprised to find that 'dans cette maison qui ne
Fiesole was highly thought of in the early nineteenth century,
possede qu'un objet d'art, le portrait de Zola par Manet, on l'a when there began to be an interest in fifteenth-century sculpture,
relegu6 dans l'antichambre.'o06 Appropriately, the work in and the attribution was perhaps made either by Sanford or by
which he himself had seemed to be dominated by the back-
ground had now been thrust into the background of his life.
1 The tabernacle is 213 cm high by 91 cm wide at the cornice, and is in four
pieces. The recess was made to enclose a door 321 by 15'7 cm. It has been
100 [G. L. LECLERC, COMTE DE] BUFFON: Oeuvres completes, Oiseaux, Cologne [1840, mentioned in books on Mino da Fiesole: H. LANGE: Mino da Fiesole [1928],
first ed. 1770-83], I, Part 2, p.42- p. 115 and G. C. SCIOLLA: La Scultura di Mino da Fiesole [1970], p. 136 (saying he
101 Ibid., p.67. For more traditional meanings of the peacock, see G. DE has not seen it).
TERVARENT: Attributs et symboles dans l'art profane, 145o-I6oo, Geneva [1958- 2 B. NICOLSON: 'The Sanford Collection', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE [I9551,
64], s.v. 'Paon'. p.207. There is an inscription in a piece of marble set into the tabernacle
102 Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe si&cte, ed. P. LAROUSSE, Paris [n.d., I866-
behind the door 'The Rev' Ino Sanford born i777 gave this marble to decorate
76], s.v. 'Paon'. the church of his native parish of which he was vicar ... years - and to com-
103 See Zola (Collection Genies et RWalites), Paris [1969], p.257, and Emile memorate his affection for his brother and sister with whom he passed many
Zola, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris [December 1952], Nos.49o and 491. happy years of his life'. This suggests that Sanford acquired the tabernacle
104 ADHEMAR: 'Le Cabinet de travail de Zola', pp.289-92. while he was still vicar of Nynehead and before he married (in 8I19), and that
105 A. RETTE: Le Symbolisme, anecdotes et Souvenirs, Paris [1903]; quoted in the door which hides the inscription was acquired after it had been made. The
Centenaire de l'Impressionnisme, Grand Palais, Paris [September-November 1974], first works known to have been bought by Sanford are two paintings he had
p.I17. acquired in Italy by i816 (B. NICOLSON, loc. cit.).
106 Reported in E. and J. DE GONCOURT: .journal, ed. R. RICATTE, Monaco 3 The tabernacle is not mentioned in the MS 'Italian account book of the Rev.
[1956], XVIII, p.124, entry of 26th October I890. Other references toJohn the Sanford' in the Barber Institute, Birmingham (N5245'5), which covers
portrait are in ibid., XV, pp.89 and io6, entries of 4th March and 4th Novem- all Sanford's large expenses in Italy from his arrival in Milan probably in 1831,
ber I888. to the packing of the collection to be sent to London in 1837. This account
For information on the Japanese art discussed in this essay, I am grateful tobook lists a 'Luca della Robbia' and 'tondo di Andrea' in 1832, without
my colleague Miyeko Murase. provenance: these are the ones in Nynehead church, which are not listed in
any of Sanford's catalogues.
* The measurement of the panel is 28"3 by 12-7 cm, not including the strip
added to the bottom. A segment has also been added to each of the upper
Shorter Notices corners. The panel was cleaned in 1971. Two of the Oxford Granacci's are in
the Ashmolean: I8Ia, St Anthony of Padua and I82b, An Angel, each on canvas
transferred from panel and each 33 by 14 cm, and the other is at Christ
A Florentine marble tabernacle with a door by Church: 6o, St Francis, canvas laid down on panel, 32'5 by 14"5 cm (I am
grateful to Messrs C. Lloyd and J. Gordon-Christian for details). All three
Francesco Granacci* belonged to the Hon. W. T. H. Fox-Strangways, who presented the Christ
Church painting in 1828. The attribution of the National Museum of Wales
BY A. D. FRASER JENKINS panel to Granacci is recorded in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological
and Natural History Society, XI [1861-62], P.49.
IN 1970 the National Museum of Wales purchased from the
5 The Christ Church panel bears a label recording that it came from the Guidi
Nynehead Parochial Church Council a marble tabernacle whichThe seal appears to read 'DC'.
collection in Florence.
had formerly been placed in a wall of the church at Nynehead
6 The in low, and included some carpentry work, perhaps to
price was quite
adapt the frame. The Granacci Annunciation from Sant' Apollonia in Florence,
*I am grateful to Dr Robert Black for assistance in Florence. now at Corsham, is listed separately as paid for in March 1833.

44

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