signed
1868. · Paris
by MANET, ÉDOUARD.
Paris, 1868.. Graphite, black ink, and white gouache, on buff laid paper (watermark indistinct). 140 x 98 mm. (ca. 5 1/2 x 3 7/8 inches), slightly irregular. Signed in pencil at lower right: manet. Provenance: Sold by the artist to Alphonse Dumas; Hôtel Drouot, Sale April 1, 1942, lot 116 (sold for 4,600 francs by the expert Cailac, according to Guérin); bought by Viscount Alain de Léché; by whom sold to Gérard Cramer; Gérard Cramer, Genève, by whom sold to the father of the present owner July 6, 1951. Literature: De Leiris, Alain: The Drawings of Édouard Manet (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1969), no. 228 ("Chats"); Rouart, Denis & Wildenstein, Daniel: Édouard Manet: Catalogue raisonné (Lausanne/Paris, 1976), Vol. II, p. 218, no. 618 (with illus.); cf. Guérin, Marcel: L'uvre gravé de Manet (Paris, 1944), no, 74 (with illus.); cf. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Édouard Manet 1832-1883. Catalogue by Anne Coffin Hanson (Philadelphia, 1966), no. 90 A preliminary design for the famous lithograph "Le rendez-vous des chats" (Guérin 74), which was to serve as a poster for the second edition of the book "Les chats" by Champfleury, published in Paris in 1870. Alain de Leiris, discussing the preparatory drawings for the lithograph in his authoritative study "The Drawings of Édouard Manet," notes that this drawing is the first study to show Manet's conception of representing cats in an outdoor setting: "In 1868, the publication of Manet's lithograph 'Le Rendez-vous des chats' was a pioneering step in launching the poster as an art form. It prefigured the accomplishments of Chéret, Lautrec, and Bonnard in the later decades of the century. Manet had illustrated the book entitled 'Les chats,' written by his friend Champfleury, with an etching, 'Le chat et les fleurs' (Guérin, no. 53)-a technically elaborate and exotic image. The lithograph 'Le Rendez-vous des chats' was planned as a poster to advertise the book. The genesis of this image is of particular interest since the final lithograph is the most stylized work of Manet. First came the direct sketches of animals in action, their characteristic poses caught in silhouetted form. Three of these drawings appear on a single sheet. Manet repeated this motif without change in a small pencil and wash drawing (illustrated in Guérin under no. 74), contrasting it on the same page with another cat differing in pose and much more stylized in form. This drawing appears to be the first stage of a composition representing cats in an outdoor setting. A large drawing presents the final synthesis. Its form is caricatural, and the pattern is dense. The two cats are now the protagonists in a ritual dance. The black cat is reminiscent of the animal in 'Olympia.' The caricatural element and picturesque subject matter (the moonlight setting and the ghostly actors: cats and chimney pots) produce a haunting mixture of the strange and the familiar. (Inventory #: B201904-1)