Edouard ManetOlympia© RMN, Hervé Lewandowski
In November 1890 the Parisian newspapers announced the acquisition of a new painting in the national collections : Manet's Olympia had just entered the Musée du Luxembourg. It was donated to the state by a group of subscribers on the initiative of the painter Claude Monet. Rich or poor, artists, amateurs, traders, men of letters and politicians, they were nearly a hundred who wanted Manet, in spite of the obstacles imposed by the administration, to be represented in the national collections. The scandal provoked by this painting in 1865 was nonetheless far from forgotten. The public at large had not yet been won over to the cause of Manet's art and it is only reluctantly that the administration accepted the donation.
This documentary exhibition was thus an occasion to present, around Manet's masterpiece, the letters exchanged between Claude Monet and the administration.
The visitor was thus able to follow the ups and downs of this affair while appreciating Monet's tenacity and discovering the donators, thanks to a small explanatory note accompanied by a photographic portrait for each of them.
