Borrowed from the old masters
The foreground group borrows an arrangement of Renaissance figures. Manet places their inherited poses in a modern setting.
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Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
Édouard Manet · 1863
painting
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A nude woman sits beside two men dressed in the fashions of the 1860s; another woman bathes behind them. Manet exhibited the painting in 1863 at the Salon des Refusés, the separate exhibition ordered for rejected works.
Details
The foreground group borrows an arrangement of Renaissance figures. Manet brings that inherited pose into a modern scene. Look beyond the group to the bather, whose placement gives the composition a second encounter with the body.
In its time
1863
Books from this period
Where it hangs
Musée d'Orsay
In context
Beyond the foreground
A second woman bathes in the stream behind the group. The foreground men wear the fashionable dress of the 1860s.
Reception
A separate show for rejected work
In 1863 Napoleon III ordered a second exhibition, the Salon des Refusés, for work the official Salon had turned away. Manet showed his painting there instead of the regular show.
The story
1863. Napoleon III orders a separate show that year for work the official Salon has turned away, the Salon des Refusés, and Manet sends his picture there instead.
Manet had based the group's pose on a Renaissance model, then reworked it for a modern scene where the men wear the ordinary dress of the 1860s instead of costume.
A second undressed woman bathes in the stream behind the picnic group, on a canvas over two and a half metres wide.
The painting hangs today in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.