Jean-Baptiste Faure

French, 1830 - 1914

Explore Selected Works

To our left, a young woman sits facing us on a low stone wall at the base of the vertical, black bars of an iron fence and a young girl stands facing away from us to our right in this horizontal painting. Both have pale skin. The woman looks directly at us with dark eyes as she holds an open book, a closed red fan, and a sleeping brown and white puppy in her lap. Her long auburn hair falls down over her shoulders. Her navy-blue dress is accented with white piping on the skirt, collar, and sleeves, and has three large, white buttons down the front and her black hat is adorned with two red poppies and a daisy. The girl wears a sleeveless white, knee-length dress belted with a marine-blue sash tied in a large bow at her back. The girl’s blond hair is pulled up and tied with a black ribbon. She raises her left hand to grasp the bar of the fence she faces. A bunch of green grapes lies on the low wall to our right. A plume of steam fills much of the space beyond the black fence, which spans the width of the painting and extends off the top edge. A few details can be made out beyond the fence, including a stone-gray building with two wooden doors to our left and a bridge along the right edge.
Edouard Manet, The Railway, 1873, oil on canvas, Gift of Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louisine W. Havemeyer, 1956.10.1

The Railway

Edouard Manet · 1873 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1956.10.1

A bearded man with light skin, wearing a black costume and holding a plumed hat, stands in front of mottled brown background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left but he turns to look off to our right from the corners of his dark brown eyes. He has heavy, furrowed brows and high cheekbones. His dark mustache curls up at either end over a full beard, and his wavy chestnut-brown hair is swept back from his forehead. His black jacket has puffed sleeves with narrow ruffles of white at his collar and cuffs, and a peek of the white shirt at his chest where the row of buttons are undone. His puffy pants gather at the thigh over black stockings, and he wears black slippers. He crosses his wrists in front of him, and he wears a gold ring with a square, scarlet-red stone on his right ring finger, to our left. In that hand, he also holds a black hat with a long, feathery plume that falls to knee level. A saber lies on the floor to our left near the man’s feet, with the grip and elaborately twisting guard facing us. The background lightens from coffee brown along the top edge to light beige along the lower edge of the composition. The portrait is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout, especially in the costume and background. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Manet.”
Edouard Manet, The Tragic Actor (Rouvière as Hamlet), 1866, oil on canvas, Gift of Edith Stuyvesant Gerry, 1959.3.1

The Tragic Actor (Rouvière as Hamlet)

Edouard Manet · 1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1959.3.1

Two horses, one dark brown and one cream white, stand together to our right against a landscape with rolling, sage-green hills and a river or canal in this horizontal painting. Near us, facing our right in profile, the brown horse rests his head across the back of the white horse, who stands with its tail toward us. The horses stand along the ridge of a grassy hill that dips beyond us to a waterway crossing the width of the canvas. Several buildings line the shore closer to us. At least one building has parchment-white walls and a red roof, and another has peanut-brown walls with a darker, chocolate-brown roof. More rooflines are nestled between, and gray smoke wafts from several chimneys. Long, low boats float near the opposite shore. The land rises in a hill across the water with more horses or other animals in the far pastures. The scene is loosely painted, and the background is the most indistinct, so some details are difficult to make out. Touches of brown and green suggest trees and perhaps more trees and buildings along the hill in the distance. The ivory-white sky is touched with pale, petal pink and a hint of blue near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “E. Degas 71.”
Edgar Degas, Horses in a Meadow, 1871, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1995.11.1

Horses in a Meadow

Edgar Degas · 1871 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1995.11.1

Edgar Degas, The Races, 1871-1872, oil on wood, Widener Collection, 1942.9.18

The Races

Edgar Degas · 1871-1872 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1942.9.18

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing us as she turns her head to look off to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The woman has pale, peachy skin, deeply shadowed, hooded eyes, and a straight nose. Shadows fill the hollow of her high cheekbones, and she has a thin face. Her black hair is plaited and tied up and back under brown bands. Earrings hang from each ear, and she wears two strands of white and gray pearls and three red necklaces. Her shoulders slope down, and her arms hang by her sides. The garnet-red bodice of her dress is cut low over a white undergarment. Red straps loop up over her mostly bare shoulders. Sapphire-blue sleeves leave the shoulders exposed and have black bands at the cuffs, which fall short of her wrists. An apron tied around her waist is loosely painted with deep red flowers and dark green leaves against a parchment-brown background. Her long skirt is midnight blue in the shadows. She holds a shimmering object in her right hand, to our left, and rests her other hand on the brown stone wall that runs behind her thighs. A tree edges into the scene along the right, and a few white stucco houses with flat, red roofs cluster on a rocky hill in the distance behind the woman, to our left. The cliffs span most of the background and end in a sheer face near the right edge of the canvas. The sky is tinged with peach at the horizon glimpsed at the foot of the cliff but is mostly steely gray. The artist signed the lower left corner, “COROT.”
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Agostina, 1866, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.108

Agostina

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot · 1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.108

A woman with peachy skin stands facing our left in profile ironing a pale blue shirt on a white surface, possibly a table, with a line of pastel-colored shirts hanging in front of curtained windows opposite us in this vertical painting. We seem to look slightly down onto the woman’s shoulders and onto the surface of the table. The white tabletop takes up most of the bottom half of the composition, and, seen from the knees up, the woman leans in from the lower right corner. The woman’s chestnut-brown hair is pulled up into a bun, and she wears a dark earring in her left ear. Her denim-blue dress is speckled with white dots and highlighted with strokes of blush pink. Her sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and a dusty rose-pink apron covers her brown skirt. She presses down on the iron with her right hand, farther from us, and uses her left hand to straighten the fabric of the shirt collar. The iron has a thick handle and a flat, narrow, triangular surface used to press out wrinkles. A small, empty, bronze-colored bowl and crisply starched and folded porcelain-white shirt lie on the table to her left, closer to us. A row of hanging garments in pale crepe pink, flaxen gold, teal, and lavender purple soften the light coming into the room from three vertical windows, which are covered with sheer, ivory-white curtains. The artist’s feathery brushstrokes give the painting a hazy quality. The artist signed the work with olive-green letters near the lower left corner: “Degas.”
Edgar Degas, Woman Ironing, begun c. 1876, completed c. 1887, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1972.74.1

Woman Ironing

Edgar Degas · begun c. 1876, completed c. 1887 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.74.1

A densely packed crowd of men and women, all of them with pale skin and most of them wearing black, stand in a theater lobby beneath a mezzanine level that runs close to the top edge of the composition in this horizontal painting. Because the crowd spans the width of the composition, the first impression is of a mass of deep black stretching across the canvas. Slowly, individual faces and poses become evident. Five of the women wear black, oval masks that cover their eyes and noses, and one more mask has fallen onto the rust-red floor below. Two women, wearing bright white and colorful clothing, engage some of the men in conversation. A man cropped by the left edge of the painting wears the green, red, and gold costume and pointed cap of a court jester. Two gold and glass wall sconces hang on the cream-colored wall behind the crowd, one near each top corner. The space within the mezzanine level above is painted loosely so details are difficult to make out, but a pair of legs clad in black britches and white stockings seems to stand with ankles crossed at the top center. A leg wearing a red, high-heeled ankle boot dangles outside of the railing to the right. The brushstrokes are loose throughout. The artist’s signature appears on a piece of discarded paper on the floor near the lower right corner: “Manet.”
Edouard Manet, Masked Ball at the Opera, 1873, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Horace Havemeyer in memory of her mother-in-law, Louisine W. Havemeyer, 1982.75.1

Masked Ball at the Opera

Edouard Manet · 1873 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.75.1

From a low perspective, we look at a man wearing black and white, lying on the ground with a pink flag beside him in this long, horizontal painting. We look onto the top of his head and his feet reach into the upper left corner of the composition, so he nearly fills the painting. His dark hair is cut short and gleams softly in the light from the upper left. His head has fallen toward his left shoulder, and his eyes are closed. He wears a black jacket and knee-length black pants. His jacket falls open to show white lining, and he wears a wide, white cummerbund and white stockings. His black, loafer-style shoes have pointed toes and possibly a bow at the bridge of each foot. He man’s right hand, farther from us, rests on his chest, and a black-handled sword or dagger is tucked into that elbow. That hand and his white tie are speckled with red blood. More blood seeps on the peanut-brown floor near the man’s left shoulder, closest to us. The man wears a gold ring on the pinky ring of his left hand, which lies along the ground and rests on or near the pale pink flag, which continues off the bottom left corner of the painting. The brown ground is lighter along the bottom of the painting and deepens to peat brown farther back, along the top edge. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the white parts of the costume and the flag. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, “Manet.”
Edouard Manet, The Dead Toreador, probably 1864, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.40

The Dead Toreador

Edouard Manet · probably 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.40

We look slightly down onto a silvery-gray beach nestled in a hilly, curving coastline to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. A flat expanse of beach stretches in front of us to meet the water to our left. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the sky above is nearly filled with heather-gray and white clouds, with only a few patches of light blue sky. Several earth-brown and black boats are pulled up onto the beach, to our left. A few poles and one anchor lie among them. A single, light gray and white pole lies perpendicular to the rest, coming toward us in the sand, higher up on the beach. Along the beach, beyond these boats, a man stands next to a woman holding a baby. The man wears an aquamarine-blue shirt and black pants and cap, and the woman wears a dress with a gray shirt and black skirt, partially covered by a cream-white apron. Several other adults and children stand and sit near boats to either side of the pair. The people are loosely painted, with only a few swipes and touches of paint, so details are indistinct. To our right, moss-green and camel-brown dunes rise from the beach, which lead to higher hills along the shoreline. The beach curves away from us to our right and then back out to our left, like a backward C. A sailboat with a fawn-brown sail sits along the beach at the curve, in the distance. A few buildings, painted with gray, yellow, red, and navy blue perch atop some hills, and more are suggested with dabs and strokes of slate blue and parchment white in the valley between hills. Farthest from us, the land rises to a high, long, flat promontory that extends about two-thirds of the way across the painting. The water in the bay is frosty, seafoam green, and a few strokes of white along the shore suggest waves. The water’s surface is mostly flat with a couple small, ink-black boats floating near the left edge and more along the horizon. The artist signed the work in brown paint in the lower right corner, “Claude Monet.”
Claude Monet, Sainte-Adresse, 1867, oil on canvas, Gift of Catherine Gamble Curran and Family, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.59.1

Sainte-Adresse

Claude Monet · 1867 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1990.59.1

Bibliography

1865

  • Larousse, Pierre. Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle. 17 vols. Paris, 1865-1890: 8:146

1923

  • Curzon, Henri de. Jean-Baptiste Faure. Paris, 1923

1974

  • Callen, Anthea. "Faure and Manet." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., no. 83 (March 1974):157-178

1989

  • Distel, Anne. Les collectionneurs des impressionists: Amateurs et marchands. Paris, 1989:75-93