From Corot to the Impressionists : a Homage to Etienne Moreau-Nélaton

Etienne Moreau-Nélaton (1859-1927), painter, ceramist and engraver, was also an art historian. In particular, He left some of the most important monographs of his time, on Delacroix, Corot, Manet or Millet. Above all, following for that matter the example of his grand-father and his father, he had amassed an exceptional collection of romantic paintings and paintings of the school of Barbizon, to which he added a few masterpieces of impressionism.
In 1906, he gave the Musée du Louvre about a hundred major paintings and he thus introduced into the national collections works such as Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Corot's Church in Marissel or Monet's Puppies, to mention just three of them. In 1927, he bequeathed to the Louvre and the Bibliothèque Nationale all his history documentation and a priceless collection of several thousand drawings, autographs and engravings by the greatest masters of the 19th century.
The Musée du Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Bibliothèque Nationale evoked for the first time as a whole these prestigious donations, so descriptive of the taste of this exceptional collector. A hundred and fifty paintings, two hundred drawings and a hundred engravings, not to mention a few sculptures and some photographs, were thus exhibited.