Claude Monet (1840-1926) - photo 1
Claude Monet (1840-1926) - photo 2
Claude Monet (1840-1926) - photo 3

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Lot 30
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 8 190
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108829
Lot 30 | Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Autograph letter signed ('Claude Monet') to [Gustave Geffroy], Giverny, 24 January 1890
In French. 3½ pages, 179 x 113mm, bifolium, with an autograph transcription by Monet of a letter to him from Antonin Proust, 23 January 1890, two pages, 176 x 112mm, bifolium. Provenance: Sotheby's, 29 & 30 April 1980, lot 325.

On his campaign to present Manet's Olympia to the French nation. Monet urges Geoffroy not to await his own arrival in Paris to have his say about Olympia: they can talk about it on his arrival, but 'the important thing is to set Manet in the place he deserves and to ensure that the state cannot refuse our gift' ('‘vous ferez bien de ne pas attendre et de dire votre mot sur le cas de l’Olympia … l’important est de mettre Manet à la place qu’il merite et de faire en sorte que l‘état ne puisse refuser notre don'). There are plenty of names among the subscribers quite apart from Antonin Proust to give 'une haute signification' to their cause. He encloses a copy of Proust's letter, which he received that morning, and suggests that Geoffroy publish it at least in part, commenting scornfully, 'as for his article in La République Française it is stupid: it proves only one thing, apart from his intention of harming our cause, which is that he finds it entirely natural for Manet not to be in the place that he deserves ... he must think that it is worth waiting for Manets to sell for 500,000 before buying them. In short, he's an idiot'. He concludes with a further encouragement to Geoffroy: 'There is only honour in defending Manet'. Antonin Proust's letter seeks to explain a conversation about the affair with Gaston Calmette, editor of Le Figaro, and states baldly his opposition to Monet's endeavour: 'I shall never associate myself with a process intending to present to the jury of the Louvre a work by Manet and particularly not Olympia', underlining that when as minister of the fine arts in 1882 he intended to acquire a work by Manet for the Musée du Luxembourg, Manet had not chosen Olympia: 'cela me suffit'.

The journalist and politician Antonin Proust (1832-1905) had been minister of the fine arts in the cabinet of Gambetta (1881-2). He was an old schoolfriend of Manet's, who painted his portrait in 1880. Monet's campaign was successful, and Olympia was acquired for the French nation in 1890 – though it was initially refused by the Louvre on the basis that Manet (who had died in 1883) had not been dead for the requisite ten years.
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