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| Édouard Manet The Salmon c. 1868 Shelburne Museum, Vermont |
"Everyone who knows Manet's works, knows what a great painter of still lifes he was and it is a curious fact that we, who probably own more of his figure pieces than any other collector, should have selected a still life as our first example of the artist. To be a great collector one must be open to conviction and the following anecdote will show you how Mr. Havemeyer began collecting Manets with a still life and ended with Gare St. Lazare and Christ with the Angels.
One morning, I think the year was 1889, Mr. Havemeyer as he bade me good morning, said: "I think I will stop in with Mr. Colman and see the Durand-Ruel exhibition at the Academy. They have some impressionist pictures there, they will probably shock Mr. Colman."
"Not at all," I said, "you will both be intensely interested and if you find any Manets there, be sure and buy me one."
My husband said he did not think there was any likelihood of his buying a Manet, but when he returned in the afternoon and greeted me, he said quietly, "I saw the exhibition this morning. There were two Manets in it, one a boy with a sword and the other a still life. The still life was very fine and I bought it for you, but I confess the Boy with the Sword was too much for me."
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| Édouard Manet Boy with a Sword 1861 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Erwin Davis |
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| Édouard Manet Family at Home in Arcachon 1871 Clark Art Institute |
"We began very modestly, buying some of Manet's smaller pictures first. One is an Interior [above] with Mme. Manet seated by a table and a young boy, her nephew I believe, seated near her. ... The other one, no larger than the first, shows an enchanting bit of garden where Manet's brother-in-law has thrown himself upon the grass, and seated close beside him is his wife dressed in the favorite white; they are watching the baby carriage which is placed in the shadows of the trees."
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| Édouard Manet In the Garden 1870 Shelburne Museum, Vermont |
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| Édouard Manet Masked Ball at the Opera 1873 National Gallery of Art (U.S.) Gift of Mrs. Horace Havemeyer in memory of her mother-in-law Louisine W. Havemeyer |
"Le Bal de l'Opéra fell to our share of Manet's works. ... Was there ever such a picture! Surely Manet had never drawn anything so incomprehensible out of his magician's hat before. Hat! Why the whole picture was hats. Hats ad infinitum! The foyer of the Opéra was just a sea of hats. I learned that in order to paint his Bal de l'Opéra Manet had spent a winter in studying black hats. He invited acquaintances to come to his studio in order that he might make a study of their hats."
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| Édouard Manet Mademoiselle Isabelle Lemonnier c. 1879-82 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
"Manet, as well as Degas, knew the value of pastel as a medium for portrait painting. He knew what light and life it gave to flesh, and his works in pastel are among his best. ... Mr. Havemeyer bought a portrait of "Mlle Lemonnier" which many consider Manet's greatest achievement in pastel, and indeed it seems to defy art to go further, for if he had blown those chalks on he could not have done it with a lighter touch or with greater freedom. ... By the side of this portrait hung another of Manet's pastels, the portrait of a beautiful blonde, her hair carefully arranged and with an elaborate costume of the time. Her elegance had evidently impressed Manet and it was most carefully done and highly finished, "pushed" as the painters say. It was much talked of in its day, and Madame clung to her beautiful portrait; it was only in her old age that she decided to sell it and it came into our possession."
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| Édouard Manet Mademoiselle Lucie Delabigne 1879 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
"By far the best known and the most amusing of all our Manet pastels is the portrait of George Moore, a onetime dilettante artist and an all-time writer on art. He is best known in England as an art critic but it is of his portrait I would speak. ... Pottier said to us that he knew of a very fine portrait by Manet which he thought might be bought, but that it would be very dear – very dear, he repeated, evidently fearful of the price the owner might ask for his picture. "It is a wonderful portrait," he said, "a wonderful portrait of a very ugly man.""
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| Édouard Manet George Moore 1879 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Édouard Manet Argenteuil 1874 Musée des beaux-arts de Tournai |
"We soon bought another 'Marine' [Boating, below] painted just after Manet's Argenteuil, now in the gallery in Brussels. Miss Cassatt calls it 'the last word in painting,' and told me that after having worked long and laboriously over the Argenteuil (which is about the same subject, a man in a sailboat) Manet was keyed up with the effort and training of the other picture and accomplished this one in a couple of days; did it in a white heat, like the race horse who makes a sudden dash and wins by a length, scarcely realizing the effort it cost him."
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| Édouard Manet Boating 1874 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
"A still more striking illustration of this concentration of an artist's powers through which he produces the chef d'oeuvre on which his fame will rest is our Blue Venice, a picture Mr. Havemeyer bought for me from Durand-Ruel's private collection. In writing of this picture I must again quote Miss Cassatt who knew Manet so well and to whom he could speak of his work and its difficulties with the frankness of a fellow artist. She congratulated us when we bought this picture saying she considered it one of Manet's most brilliant works; it was so full of light and atmosphere and expressed the very soul and spirit of Venice. "Manet told me," she said, "that he had been a long time in Venice, I believe he spent the winter there and he was thoroughly discouraged and depressed at his inability to paint anything to his satisfaction. He had just decided to give it up and return home to Paris. On his last afternoon in Venice, he took a fairly small canvas and went out on the Grand Canal just to make a sketch to recall his visit; he told me he was so pleased with the result of his afternoon's work that he decided to remain over a day and finish it. "My dear," concluded Miss Cassatt, "that is the way Manet happened to paint your Venice."
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| Édouard Manet Grand Canal of Venice (Blue Venice) 1874 Shelburne Museum, Vermont |
"I pointed to Manet's El Espada - the bullfighter stands in the ring holding his sword, covered with the red cape, in his hand and doffs his cap, probably to the royal family, before attacking the bull. "I think we ought to buy that picture," I said.
"Why don't you?" quietly rejoined Miss Cassatt.
"I fear Mr. Havemeyer would think it too big," I answered.
"Don't be foolish," said Miss Cassatt. "It is just the size Manet wanted it, and that ought to suffice for Mr. Havemeyer; besides, it is a splendid Manet, and I am sure he will like it if you buy it."
"Very well," I said, "I will buy it, and now let us go home and tell him."
I think we enjoyed 'telling Mr. Havemeyer' what we had done quite as much as we had enjoyed buying the pictures. I made a little bow and, imitating his manner, repeated the words he always said when he presented a picture to me. "Mr. Havemeyer," I said. "Manet's Bullfighter is yours." He smiled so genially at us that Miss Cassatt said to me quickly, "What did I tell you!"
But Mr. Havemeyer, not understanding what she meant, said to me: "It no doubt is a very fine picture, but now, my dear, it is up to you to hang it." Hanging it meant a lot of work which I enjoyed, but I was obliged to change many pictures."
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| Édouard Manet A Matador (El Espada) 1866-67 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Édouard Manet Young Man in the Costume of a Majo 1863 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
"When my husband saw how well the big Manet looked in our gallery it was not long before he bought Manet's Majo, a life-sized figure in a Spanish costume of the province of Catalonia. He has a pale face and brilliant black eyes; he leans upon a staff and a gorgeous red scarf is thrown over his arm. It is a strong portrait, done in Manet's most characteristic manner, and it makes a worthy pendant to the Bullfighter. Shortly after, Mr. Havemeyer bought the most important of our large Manets, Mlle V in the Costume of a Toreador [below]. It was painted after Manet's return from Spain, where he undoubtedly studied Velazquez, and, I believe, determined to paint a large picture of a bullfight, which project was never completely realized but to which we owe both our Bullfighter and Mlle V."
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| Édouard Manet Mademoiselle V in the Costume of an Espada 1862 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Édouard Manet Gare Saint Lazare (The Railroad) 1873 National Gallery of Art (U.S.) Gift of Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louisine W. Havemeyer |
"As to the Gare Saint Lazare, you ask me how we could have bought such a picture? How we could have disregarded the absence of silk stockings, satin slippers, the best frock, the tortured hair, the pretty bow? And again you ask, is that a portrait, what is the attraction in it, what made us want to posses it? What caused us to forgive Manet that we should never see the child's face? You ask why we paid for iron rails and steam engines we barely see? You tell us that the child is not even pretty and that the mother is positively ugly – only Manet's model in another dress – that even the doggie is unattractive, and you long to know why we put so much money into such a picture. I answer art, art, art."
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| Édouard Manet The Dead Christ, with Angels 1864 Metropolitan Museum Gift of Louisine Havemeyer |
"I persuaded Mr. Havemeyer to buy Christ with the Angels because it went begging both here and abroad. I have said it and I repeat it, it went begging, and let the public galleries explain it if they can, for if ever there was a museum Manet, it seems to me it is his Christ with the Angels. ... When my husband bought it I knew it was not suitable for our gallery but I felt if it once left our shores it would never return to America, so to please me Mr. Havemeyer bought it, saying as he gave it to me: "I really do not know what you will do with it." I hung it in various places in our home, but I found it crushed everything beside it and crushed me as well. ... For several years I put it away, but after my husband's death, when Manet was better understood, I sent it to the Metropolitan Museum, where it hangs beside the Manet Mr. Havemeyer saw and rejected because it was "too much for him," the splendid Boy with the Sword."
Quotations are from the art-collecting memoirs of Louisine Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty (New York : Ursus Press, 1993 – originally published, 1930). Editorial notes give details of Havermeyer purchases when documentation has survived –
The Salmon was acquired in 1886 for 15,000 francs
In the Garden was acquired in 1898 for 22,000 francs
Masked Ball at the Opera was acquired in 1894 for $8,000
George Moore was acquired in 1896 for 10,000 francs
Boating was acquired in 1895 for 55,000 francs
Blue Venice was acquired in 1895 for $12,000
A Matador was acquired in 1898 for $8,000
Young Man in the Costume of a Majo was acquired in 1899 for $10,000
Mademoiselle V in the Costume of an Espada was acquired in 1898 for $15,000
Gare Saint-Lazare was acquired in 1898 for $15,000
The Dead Christ, with Angels was acquired in 1903 for $17,000