Ball at The Opera by Carol
Sutton
Specific Historically Based Paintings©
by Carol Sutton
- (1987) Ball at The Opera by Carol Sutton
-
-
- VERSION #1
-
- Size: 90 inches by 107 inches, It was painted unstretched. And
is now still unstreached and unframed.
- The painting has never been stretched or framed and is rolled up in
the artist studio.
-
- Inventory #87/01/15 to 19
-
- Date: January 15 to 19, 1987, the second painting made that
year. Painted before the BarcelonaTriangleWorkshop in Barcelona,
Spain
-
- Materials: Golden Acrylic on cotton canvas
-
- Sources: Manet painting titled: Ball at the Opera
- Provenance: Collection: of the artist
- Web provenance: none
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
-
- Notes: This is VERSION # 1. of two that I paintings that I made on
Manet's Ball at the Opera. The second VERSION # 2 is longer by about 3
feet. It is titled:
- GRAND BALL AT THE OPERA ( Long ) , size: 87 1/2 " x 149",
or 7 feet 3 1/2 inches by 12 feet 5 inches. Date: Apirl 3 to 11, 1998.
Inventory # 90/04/03 to 11.
DETAILS
-
- DETAIL 1.of Carol Sutton's The Ball at The Opera.
-
- subliminal saxaphone like player, dangling legs of the lady in the
balcony, post with light escutcheon, detail of right upper portion of painting.
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
- &
- link:
- MYSTUDIOS.COM MANET
LEGS in MANET's
- via http://www.mystudios.com/manet/paint.html:
- Allows for:
- Mouse Over the image for 7 detail views
- Masked Ball at the Opera (detail)
- 1873
- oil on canvas 59x72cm
- National Art Gallery, DC
-
-
- DETAIL 2.of Carol Sutton's The Ball at The Opera.
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
-
- Escutcheon on post, and crowd below
- DETAIL 3 .of Carol Sutton's The Ball at The Opera.
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
-
- Halequin costumed figure, with ladies , one whom has stripped blue
and white hose, detail from lower left side of painting.
- These Halequin figures are also called : Pierrette or débardeuxe
, or [" stevedorette" } notes via page 349 in Manet/book by The
Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Abrams.
- DETAIL 4 .of Carol Sutton's The Ball at The Opera.
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
-
- Floral circular bouquet of flowers, with clusters of men dressed in
formal black dress with white collars and shirts. Detail central portion
of painting.
- Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
-
- & COMPARISION
- FLORAL
in MANET's via MYSTUDIOS.COM MANET
- http://www.mystudios.com/manet/1870/opera/flowers.html
- Allows for:
- Mouse Over the image for 7 detail views
- Masked Ball at the Opera (detail)
- 1873
- oil on canvas 59x72cm
- National Art Gallery, DC
- SEE MORE ON MANET's FLORAL BOUQUETS BELOW:
One Source of Inspiration:
Manet painting titled: BALL
AT THE OPERA
Edouard Manet. The Masked Ball at the Opera. c.1873-1874.
Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
Masked Ball at the Opera (detail)
or as Manet himself titled it:
'Bal masqué a l' Opera" ( as per his account
book )
1873
oil on canvas 59x72cm; also listed as 23 1/2"
x 28 3/4" or ( 60cm x 73 cm)
Signed: yes in lower right, on dance program:
Manet
National Art Gallery, Washington, DC
Provenance of Exhibitions: First shown in Beaux-Arts 1884,
as number 69 in Paris, France. shown in New York, Shown by dealer
Durand-Ruel 1895, as no. 29, and in Washington , District
of Columbia, 1982-1983, , no. 39.
Purchased by Maurice FAURE, on November 18, 1873. Faure
paid 6,000 Frs for the work. Five years later Faure tried to sell this painting
in 1878; but remained unsold. So Faure still owned it at the time
of the posthumous Manet exhibition of 1884. But in 1894, ten
years later, Faure did sell it to dealer, Durand-Ruel. Durand-Ruel
in turn sold it to one of the greatest female art collectors of the 19th
and early 20th century, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer. The Havemayer
family kept the work of nearly a centruy, until 1992, when Mrs. Havemeyer's
heirs gave it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
( notes on this from page 352 under section: 'Provenance' by F.C. who
is Francoise Cachin.
[ 1884-2 shows: After the death of Manet
on April 30, 1883 and buried on May 3, 1883 in Passy Cemetery, Paris)
1. January 6-28- Paris, Ecloe Nationale
des beaux-Arts, Exposition des Oeuveres d'Edouard Manet
2. February 2-3 Paris, Hotel Drouet, Succession
Edouard Manet ( presale exhibition for auction)]
Every year in mid-Lent, the Opera held its famous 'Masked Ball', which
was followed ten days later by a second ball, called the 'Bal des Artistes'.
Filled with beautiful show girls of Paris and gentlemen in formal dress.
It is said that Manet attended the ball, where he made sketches, and was
inspired by the Masked Ball and concieved of the painting. The painting
was executed over a period of serveral months.
This painting was based on the Opera while it was in the location of
the rue Le Peletier as the present Opera was still under construction. Quote:
" Manet chose a part of the building tthat affored him his accustomed
strictly horizontal compositon, under a balcony extending the lenght of
the painting: " The scene is not the hall, where the dancing was, but
the promenade behind the boxes. " ( footnote #3, which is Duret, 1902,
page 88. )
Notes: by Francoise Cashin on pages 349, 350, 351, 352, , ia page
349 in Manet/book by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Abrams. Includes
a black and white detail of El Greco: Burial of the Conde de Orgaz,
from Santo Tomé, Toledo, Spain.
-
Manet's own possible
source of Inspiration: El Greco
Manet painting
titled: BALL AT THE OPERA
What were Manet's own historic painted sources or inspiration
for this painting, other than the actual scene itself?
| Burial of Count Orgaz
Text on page 353 of this same book has:
QUOTE:
"Leiris has seen a possible iconographic
source in the celebrated Burial of the Conde de Orgaz by El Greco
( figure a), which Manet had seen with Duret at Toledo in the summer of
1865 (footnote # 13- Leiris, 1980, pages 95-96, and page 99).
image credit:
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&lr=&q=Burial+of+the+Orgaz-Greco&btnG=Search
to
http://www.biblical-art.com/biblicalsubject.asp?id_biblicalsubject=803&pagenum=1
|
|
| 
|
Eugene Giraud (1806-1881)
The Ball at the Opera. 1861
Wood engraving. Paris, Bibliotheque National, Cabinet
des estampes.
"One of the many illustrations of the masked balls
to be found in popular magazine and newspapers, this example has a close
compostioanl affinity to Manet's painting. " page 160, from Chapter:
A COMPLETE VISION OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE'; book Manet, by Kathleen Adler. |
| 
|
Alfred Grevin
The ball of the Opera
Wood engraving from Petit Journal pour rire, no 176, (1873),
1. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France.
illustrated on page 122, Chapter: THE THEATER AND THE OPERA,
book by Theodore Reff. |
|
|
-
-
- I have used extensive information from Francoise
Cachin's book on Edouard Manet to write the text below. Here
is the book information data:
-
Book INFORMATION:
(Manet, Edouard: 1832-1883) Cachin, Françoise, intro. (Edouard)
MANET: 1832-1883.
- NY: Abrams / Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983, 11.5 x 9 in., 547 pp.
with 461 illustrations, 138 in color; clothbound in dust jacket; as new.
Catalog of the major retrospective exhibition of Edouard Manet, held at
the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris and the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.
http://www.abaa.org/
- then search word: MANET
-
- QUOTE: "Masked Ball at the Opera -In this painting Manet
depicts the Opera on the rue le Peletier
-
-
- [VIEW: both: and Another view of the Opéra
before its destruction by fire(We are most grateful to M. Laurent Ludart
who sent us this picture. ) ;This engraving dates from 1861 and
is in our own collection. The Opéra before it burnt down in 1873
;The Opéra on fire - 29 October 1873 -all at this URL: http://www.hberlioz.com/Paris/BPOpera.html]
-
- which was destroyed by fire while he was still working on it. All classes
of society attended the opera and sat according to their means. Manet went
to the Opera to make sketches and in his studio had friends and models
pose for the painting. Manet himself appears, second figure from the right
with the blonde beard. His card appears to have fallen to the floor at
the bottom right. " end quote. What did Manet's sketches consist of?
Apparently the sketches don from life were wash sketches, QUOTE: page 350
of same book, " which only a wash (RWII 503 ) and two painted sketches
(RW I 214, & 215) survive, Manet was a long time completing the work
in his studio; As with Music in the Tuileries (cat 38), of which this picture
is reminiscent in more ways than one, Manet posed groups of his male friends,
more of whom came to see him on the rue d' Amsterdam than formerly on the
rue Guyot, as Duret testifies: " end quote. Friends posing were: Duret
himself, Paul Roudier, a composer, Emmanuel Chabrier, a collector; Albert
Hecht, and the painters Gillaudin and André (footnote #9, which
is Bazire 1884, page 139, Duret, 1906, pages 110 to 111.) however it is
difficult to identify them. " end quote. Duret may be the tall one
on the left side of the painting.
-
- The painting has seven women in it, although the text in the Manet
( Museum of Metropolitan Museum book) states: 'None of the five women has
been identified". With the addition of the two women on the upper
section of the balcony or second level , one with only her black pantaloons
with gold fringe and white hose, and the other female with white hose and
fanciful red orange high heel boots, dangling her leg over the edge of
the balcony gold iron railing; plus the five women below, of which all
except one, wear an oval black face mask: far left the lady with blue and
white striped hose next to the Pierot / or Harlequin figure, then the only
one WITHOUT a mask, in blue short pants with a red bow, suspenders, and
a black top hat, with blue high heel shoes with white laces who is embraced
by a man in a top hat; centrally is the masked woman peering straight at
the viewer, wearing pale light blue gloves as she clasps a floral circular
bouquet in her right hand; over a black dress; fourth woman is the masked
woman all in a long black dress, who is holding her gloves in her hand,
and last of the five is the profile woman with black mask , whose shoulders
are draped in a red shawl, she also wears a gray hat, and is holding onto
the shoulder of a man to her left, ( on the far right side of the painting).
All in all seven women. Three in white hose. Two in black dresses. And
one younger looking woman, in a white outfit with a colorful bonnet tilted
forward on her head; she is the one with the blue and white striped hose
or Striped columbine stockings, and flat black shoes.
-
- Excerpt from same text: As poet Stephane Mallarmé sees it:
- QUOTE: " The scene is not the hall, where the dancing was, but
the promenade behind the boxes. " ( footnote #3) Mallarmé ,
describing the painting at length the following year, interpreted this
particular choice of location as a means of individualizing what would
have been a blurred movement, of no time and no place, would not have offered
to plastic art a shore of authentically human attitudes. Thus, the costumes
merely break up the monotony of black frock coats with some fresh floral
tones,; and they disappear sufficiently to render the congestion of lobby
strollers a showcase for the display of a modern crowd, which could not
be portrayed except with these few bright notes for embellishment. "
( Footnote #4. , which is Mallarmé 1945, page 88)
-
- The painting is fascinating for its assymenterical composition. As
if a group of dangling participles and legs blended into so much black
and yet shapes are reveled. The far left side has a half figure going out
the picture, the same as Zurbaran [ ZURBARÁN , Francisco
de (b. 1598, Fuente de Cantos, d. 1664, Madrid)
half sheep painting. This figure of the Pierrette in red and green complementary
colors goes off the edge of the picture plane. Spots of blue and white
dance throughout the paintings in a sea of black; creating a rhythm all
their own.
-
- What were Manet's own historic painted sources or inspiration for
this painting other than the actual scene itself?
- Text on page 353 of this same book has: QUOTE:
- "Leiris has seen a possible iconographic source in the
celebrated Burial of the Conde de Orgaz by El Greco (
figure a), which Manet had seen with Duret at Toledo in the summer of 1865
(footnote # 13- Leiris, 1980, pages 95-96, and page 99).
- Burial of Count Orgaz
- GRECO, El
- http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&lr=&q=Burial+of+the+Orgaz-Greco&btnG=Search
- to
- http://www.biblical-art.com/biblicalsubject.asp?id_biblicalsubject=803&pagenum=1
-
-
- Manet's Floral Bouquets: A comparison between the floral
bouquet in Manet's painting The Masked
Ball at the Opera of 1873 to Manet's decade earlier
painting of Olympia's 1863 floral bouquet held by the maid.
-
|
DETAIL: the floral bouquet held by pale blue covered gloves. Central
portion of The Masked Ball at the Opera, 1873, by Manet |
DETAIL: Detail of the maid holding a bouquet for her mistress.- from
Olympia, oil on canvas, 1.30.5 cm x 190 cm., Paris, Musee d' Orsay. by
Manet |
| 
Olympia, oil on canvas, 1.30.5 cm x 190 cm., Paris, Musee d' Orsay.
by Manet |
|
| 
Hands drawings by Thomas Couture, the teacher of Manet.
Note the sure confident drawing of Couture's hands and note how similar
the hands of the masked lady ( who is standing just left of the lady
holding the bouquet) , that grasp her gloves so strongly in Manet's
The Ball at the Opera and how very similar this grasp is to these
drawings of Couture hands that hold these objects, weather feather, stone,
or hammer.C.L.S. |
photo scan:
Study of Three Hands, chalk on paper. Ex-coll. Bertauts-couture, at
Shepherd.
from page 61 of ARTS MAGAZINE/ May 1971, article : by Andrea Mikotajuk-reviews
Thomas Couture show at Shepherd ( May 17-June)
QUOTE: " has a major exhibition of drawing by Thomas Couture (1815-1879).
---" Couture's murals have a quality of worldliness that separates
them from the work of his contemporaries."
This excellent link has everything on Couture.
Biography: (b Senlis, 21 Dec 1815; d Villiers-le-Bel, 3 March
1879).+ photos+Other sites with information about Couture+
Couture,
Thomas - 1815-1879 Artfact.com
http://www.artfact.com/features/viewArtist.cfm?aID=25058
|
- Manet's Floral Bouquets in 2 Cartoons of his time:
- A comparison between cartoons that show the floral bouquet
in Manet's painting Olympia.
- Manet's print of Olympia; note the drawing of
the floral bouquet held by the maid.
-
- 1.
Cartoon
or Caricature by Betall, 1865. ( BERTALL -Manette ou la femme de
Eboniste. 1865. )
-
- 2.
Cham, Olympia, Caricature in Le Charivari, May 1865.
- &
-
- Manet's PRINT
- Olympia
- 1865-67
- Etching
- Size: 8.8 cm (3? in.) height by 17.8 cm (7 in.) width
-
-
-
- web links to another Manet based painting
by Carol Sutton: The Surprised Nymphe
- Plus links to other paintings based on MANET
by artist Carol Sutton, such as:
- Manet: 'The Surprised Nymph'
- 1859 to 1861
- oil on canvas
- 57 1/2: x 45" , (146 cm x 114
cm)
- dated ( on a leaf) and signed (lower
left: 1861, : as éd Manet
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos
Aires, Argentina
- ____________________________________________________________
- known by others and painted by other artist ,
with this title:Suzanna Surprised by the Elders:
- ____________________________________________________________
- Also done by Rembrandt, as 'Suzanna
surprised by the Elders, (18 3/4" x 15", The Hague, Mauritshuis,
on page 238 of the Rembrandt book by Horst Gerson.
- ____________________________________________________________
- & RUBENS, Peter Paul - painted Susannah
and the Elders in 1614.
- Susannah and the Elders , Peter Paul Rubens, 1614, Oil on canvas,
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm,
- &
- Susannah and the Elders , Peter Paul Rubens, 94 x 76 cm, Oil
on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 70663, CD#1155.010
- [Version Manet used is lost, known to him from engraving by Vorstermann,
or from Charles Blanc, Histoire des peintres ]
- via:
- http://web.mit.edu/user/s/h/shawmut/www/m2.html
- ____________________________________________________________
- & TINTORETTO, Susannah and the Elders-The
Surprised Nymph (Moses Saved from the Waters). 1859-61.
- Oil on canvas. (146 x 114cm)
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
- &
- "Susannah and the Elders ,Tintoretto, Kunst. Museum, Vienna,
A60031, CD#0510.097
- Right: Jupiter amoureux d'Antiope se transforme en Satyre ,
After Titian's Venus del Pardo , Bernard Baron, 38.7x66.3cm, Engraving,
Alinari photograph, c. 1890-1900, British Museum, London, PCat, CD#1155.019."
MANET Selected
and Related Works Study Images For 4.602, Taught by Leila Kinney :
via http://web.mit.edu/user/s/h/shawmut/www/m2.html
- &
- Related Imagery:
- -----
- "Left: Moses Saved , Edme Jeurat, Engraving, Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, PCat, CD#1155.012
- Right: Moses Found in the Nile , Simon Vallee, Engraving, Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, PCat, CD#1155.011 "
- via http://web.mit.edu/user/s/h/shawmut/www/m2.html
- ____________________________________________________________
& Van Dyck, Susannah and the Elders
- Antoon Van Dijck 1599-1641
- http://fran.sneeknet.nl/homepage/show/pagina.php?paginaid=104297
-
- Carol Sutton's painting:
- The Surprised Nymph Manet
- 82 x 90 1/2",
- Date: 1987
- inventory number : 87/01/16
- _____________________
- & Carol Sutton's painting:
- Suzanna Surprised by the Elders, after
Van Dyck, Tintoretto
- vertical painting
- size: 99 inches x 88 1/2 "
- Date: 1987
- Inventory number: 87/ 08/ 25
& LINKS
- WEB SITES:
-
- MY
STUDIOS- MANET
- http://www.mystudios.com/manet/paint.html
- Manet's Oceanic Feeling
- by Nancy Locke
- http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring_05/articles/lock.html
- CATS & MANET
- http://www.brynmawr.edu/visualculture/journal/e_manetsCats3.shtml
- &
- CAT PIP and Max Beckman Story by Carol Sutton
- Mallarme, Manet, and the Belle Epoch in Paris
- by Julie Lorenzen
- _
- Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
- http://www.biography.com/impressionists/artists_morisot.html
http://www.julielorenzen.net/paris.html
- MANET -Selected and Related Works Study Images For 4.602, Taught
by Leila Kinney
- 4.602 Modern Art and Mass Culture, Leila Kinney
- QUOTE: "The works selected are from the first part of Manet's
career, when his art involves a recasting or travesty of the works of past
masters, often known to him through graphic reproduction, and the use of
contemporary imagery generated by the 19th century "media explosion."
This group of paintings will be used to explore Michel Foucault's suggestion
that Manet is the first "museum painter" and the relationship
of his manner of painting to mechanically reproduced imagery. " end
quote
- Leila Kinney
- http://web.mit.edu/user/s/h/shawmut/www/workslist.html
- &
- Olympia. 1863. [exhibited Salon of 1865] Oil on canvas. (130.5
x 90cm) Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
- RELATED WORKS: http://web.mit.edu/user/s/h/shawmut/www/m11.html
-
-
-
- IMAGE CREDITS: (if not already noted in above text)
-
- www.chompy.net/blogs/ jacob/archives/001942/
- olympia.jpg=
- 1115 x 749 pixels - 131k
- http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/manet/olympia.jpg.html
- Opera rue Le Peletier:
- This engraving dates from 1861 and is in our own collection.
-
- The Opéra before it burnt down in 1873
- http://www.hberlioz.com/Paris/BPOpera.html
-
- The Surprised Nymph #1 This is the first in a series about this subject.
Manet's wife is the sitter for these paintings. They are thought to be
connected with the first rough sketches of The Finding of Moses .The
Surprised Nymph
- 1860
- oil on canvas 34x25cm
- Private Collection
- MY STUDIO.com
- http://www.mystudios.com/manet/1860/manet_nymph.html
- via
- A SUPERB ART AND ARTIST INDEX> WITH TIMELINES> DATES> IMAGES:
- http://www.wga.hu/index.html
- PRINT IMAGE:
- 1. CENTAUR GALLERIES
- http://www.centaurgalleries.com/Main/Item.cfm?ItemNo=05938
- 1883)
- Olympia
- 1865-67
- Etching
-
- Size: 8.8 cm (3? in.) height by 17.8 cm (7 in.) width
-
-
- QUOTE: "Manet's "scandalous" canvas of
1863, exhibited at the 1865 Salon, was transcribed in two etchings. The
compilers of the catalogues of Manet's graphic work do not agree on their
chronological order. The version reproduced here is closer to the painting.
Probably made about 1865-67, it was published in Emile Zola's booklet Edouard
Manet, Etude biographique et critique, issued in 1867. In this etching
Manet suppressed the lower part of the canvas, and by thus reducing the
height of the composition he emphasized the length and horizontality of
the woman's figure. The painting raised an unusually violent storm of protest.
It is difficult for us today to understand the public's reaction. Its objections
and repugnance even extended to the black cat, which in itself was considered
perfectly outrageous. Visitors to the exhibition were so angry that the
canvas had to be protected by attendants against the threat of violence.
The critic of Le Constitutionnel'was of course among the detractors. Even
"advanced" critics failed to appreciate the painting. Jules Claretie
and Theophile Gautier disliked it and said so in forthright terms. The
painters themselves were divided over it. Courbet came out against it.
Pissarro defended it; so did Degas.
-
- Bracquemond often lent assistance to his painter friends
when they took up etching. He attended to the biting of Corot's plates;
he helped Manet and Pissarro in the practice of aquatint. For Manet's etching
of Olympia, Bracquemond is supposed to have worked on the final states
of the copper plate. Five or six states (the exact number is uncertain)
were thought necessary to perfect the needling of the plate. In the fourth
state, the plate was cut down on both left and right in order to eliminate
a vertical strip on both sides which had not been needled. In the final
state, the woman's hand on her lower belly was slightly reworked in order
to bring out its contours." END QUOTE
- 2.
- The Russell Collection Inventory
-
- Etching and aquatint
- Harris' 6th and final state, with full margins. A very
fine dark impression with strong contrasts. Harris 53 Guerin 39
- Unframed Size: 3 5/8 x 7
- Framed Size:
- Inventory Number: 902826
sub type: Specific Historically Based
Paintings© by Carol Sutton
Surprised Nymph(Manet)+Suzanna
Elders by Carol Sutton
Carol
Sutton Fine Art -take me back in the arms of my homepage
Photo credit: BLANK PHOTO© by Carol Sutton
BLANK PHOTO by Carol Sutton
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