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Impressionist painting, Edouard Manet (artist) French, 1832 - 1883, The Railway, 1873, oil on canvas

Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Upcoming Exhibition

September 8, 2024 – January 19, 2025
West Building, Main Floor

How did Impressionism begin? Discover the origins of the French art movement in a new look at the radical 1874 exhibition considered the birth of modern painting.

A remarkable presentation of 130 works includes a rare reunion of many of the paintings first featured in that now-legendary exhibition. Revisit beloved paintings by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir and meet their lesser-known contemporaries. See the art norms they were rebelling against and learn what political and social shifts sparked their new approach to art.

Don’t miss the unique chance to immerse yourself in the dynamic Parisian art scene of 1874—we are the only American stop for this historic exhibition.

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.
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Edouard Manet, The Railway, 1873, oil on canvas, Gift of Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louisine W. Havemeyer, 1956.10.1
From behind a low stone wall, on which a young woman with pale skin sits, we look across a wide, shimmering blue waterway toward a town along the opposite shore, under a pale blue sky with wispy white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. The caramel-brown, stone wall runs across the lower right corner, into the distance to our right. The woman sits on our side of the wall with her legs angled to our right, and she twists to lean onto her right hand, on our left, as she looks down toward the water. Her brown hair and face are shaded by the pale, shell-pink umbrella she holds in her left hand, to our right. She wears an ankle-length white dress with long sleeves, and a touch of white on the black hat she wears suggests it is decorated with a flower. The waterway seems to be lined with smooth walls like a canal. Ships with black hulls and wooden masts nearly span the passageway and reflect in the surface of the water beyond the woman. The shore across from us is lined with a row of deep green trees in front of a cluster of cream-white buildings with charcoal-gray roofs. More buildings are visible in the distance on our side of the waterway. The scene is loosely painted so many details are difficult to make out, especially in the woman’s face. The artist signed the work in dark paint at the lower center: “B Morisot.”
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Berthe Morisot, The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.48
An older woman wearing a long black dress sits reading a book in front of a younger woman wearing cream white, who sits on a couch just beyond, in this vertical portrait painting. The scene is loosely painted with some visible brushstrokes, especially in the furniture, clothing, and room. Both women have pale skin and wear dresses with long sleeves and skirts. To our right, the older woman sits in a chair with a curved back, which runs parallel to the right edge of the canvas. The full skirt of her black dress angles down across the picture, almost spanning the bottom edge of the composition. Her gray hair is pulled back and covered by a black cloth or veil, which falls to her shoulder and blends with her dress. The collar is lined with a white ruffle, and white lace cuffs encircle her wrists. Her face is painted with rosy tones. She looks down at her book with dark eyes, and her rose-pink lips are closed. She wears a gold ring with a light stone on her left ring finger, and the book she holds has a moss-green cover. Her skirt overlaps the younger woman sitting nearby on the couch, which runs along the back wall of the room. The young woman’s knees are angled to our left but she looks slightly back to our right, to gaze down and into the distance with brown eyes. Her skin is paler, but she has lightly flushed cheeks and her petal-pink lips are also closed. An azure-blue bow is tied in her chestnut-brown hair. A few tendrils fall down her back and over one shoulder. Her dress falls loosely over her torso and legs. She wears a gold ring on her left hand and a gold bracelet on that wrist. She fingers a piece of lapis-blue fabric in one hand. The couch behind her has a pattern with stylized flowers or leaves floating within rose-pink ribbons that hang in swags, against a white background. Pillows patterned with ruby red, sky blue, and fawn brown peek out from behind the young woman. A round or oval wooden table with curving legs to our left holds a glass vase with a violet-purple flower, perhaps a hydrangea. A slip of paper or envelope sits on the table next to the vase. The wall behind the couch is fog gray, and the bottom edge of a gold frame hangs behind the young woman.
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Berthe Morisot, The Mother and Sister of the Artist, 1869/1870, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.186
A tree with emerald-green leaves and laden with white blossoms grows in a dirt field, and is silhouetted against a vibrant blue sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible dabs and strokes. The tree takes up most of the left half of the painting, and is closest to us. It casts a dappled shadow onto the ground to our right. A barren tree with gnarled branches grows nearby, in the tree’s shadow. A row of more trees extends in the distance to our right. A narrow dirt path, bordered by low green growth, stretches from the bottom edge of the canvas, to our right of center, into the field. To our left and farther from us, a woman leans over and reaches for the ground. She faces our left in profile and wears a white bonnet, a brown shawl, and a blue skirt. Near the line of trees to our right, a man walks toward the woman. He wears blue pants, a white shirt, a dark cap, and he carries a tan bag over his left shoulder. There are more trees along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. The sky above is light gray near the horizon and deepens to vivid blue with fluffy white clouds. The painting is signed and dated in the lower right: “C. Pissarro 1872.”
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Camille Pissarro, Orchard in Bloom, Louveciennes, 1872, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.51
We look across a placid pond at sandstone-white buildings with brown and terracotta-red roofs nestled within a grove of green trees and plants in this vertical landscape painting. To our left, the brown roofs cover extensions to the main building, which has the terracotta roof. Between us and the buildings, the remains of a slate-gray wall are partially hidden by a vine or tree. The plants in front of the buildings are created with short daubs of yellow and green with touches of blue. The pond or other small body of water close to us spans the lower width of the canvas. The plants are reflected in the water's smooth surface. The trees to our right and behind the house have olive-green trunks stretching beyond the top edge of the composition. Their leaves blend together to fill the space next to and behind the house with a patchwork of shades of emerald, pine, and celery green. These greens are layered with short, angled strokes over smoother patches, and they fill the upper third of the composition. Patches of orange and a slice of azure-blue sky are visible among the leaves on the left side over the brown roofs. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “P. Cezanne 73.”
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Paul Cézanne, House of Père Lacroix, 1873, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.102
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Eugène Boudin, Beach House with Flags at Trouville, c. 1865, watercolor over graphite, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.74
A pale-skinned girl wearing an arctic-blue ballet costume stands looking at us and almost fills this vertical painting. The scene is painted with blended strokes, giving it a soft, almost blurry look. In pale pink ballet slippers, she stands with her feet in fifth position, so the toes are turned out while her feet are almost parallel, the heel of the front foot touching the toes of the other. Her body faces our left, and she turns her head to look at us with blue eyes. She has delicate, dark brows, rosy cheeks, and full pink lips. Her long honey-brown hair is tied with a sky-blue ribbon like a headband. The fitted bodice of her pale blue dress has a lapis-blue bow at the chest, and the short sleeves tie around the sides of her shoulders. A sash around her middle is also lapis blue. The knee-length tutu has layers of light fabric, and seems to fly up behind her. She wears a black choker necklace and a black bracelet on each wrist. She holds a white object, perhaps a lacy handkerchief, in her right hand at her waist. Her other arm, closer to us, hangs down by her side as she touches the tutu. The background is painted with strokes of spring, sage, and pine green with touches of teal blue. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “A. Renoir. 74.”
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Auguste Renoir, The Dancer, 1874, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.72
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Edouard Manet, Polichinelle, 1874, lithograph in black hand-colored with gouache and watercolor on wove paper, Gift (Partial and Promised) of Malcolm Wiener, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.65.1
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Berthe Morisot, At the Edge of the Forest (Edma and Jeanne), c. 1872, watercolor and graphite on paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.18.33
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.”
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

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
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Eugène Boudin, Ladies and Gentlemen on the Beach, in Two Registers, c. 1865, watercolor over graphite, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.76
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Eugène Boudin, Three Women at Trouville, c. 1865, watercolor and graphite on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.142
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié, Gloria Victis, model c. 1874, cast after 1879, bronze, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1985.52.1
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Edouard Manet, Line in Front of the Butcher Shop (Queue devant la boucherie), 1870, etching on wove paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1950.16.100
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Edouard Manet, Lemercier & Cie, Civil War (Guerre civile), 1871, lithograph on chine collé, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5758
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Alphée Dubois, The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) [obverse], 1874, gilded copper, Corcoran Collection, 2015.19.3970.a
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Félix Bracquemond, The Road Leading to Bellevue (Le Chemin montant à Bellevue), 1873, etching on Japan paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1980.45.210
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Giuseppe de Nittis, The Dancer Holoke-GO-Zen, 1873, etching, drypoint, and roulette on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2010.7.1
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Alphée Dubois, 1874 Salon Medal for Painting to Louis Priou [reverse], 1874, gilded copper, Corcoran Collection, 2015.19.3970.b
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Edouard Manet, The Barricade (La barricade), 1871, crayon lithograph with scraping on chine collé [proof], Rosenwald Collection, 1946.21.133
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Maxime Lalanne, Un Poste de Garde, 1871, etching on Japanese paper, Gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, 2021.113.28
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Maxime Lalanne, Avenue de Boulogne, 1871, etching on wove paper, Gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, 2021.113.24
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Maxime Lalanne, The Effects of Bombardment, 1871, etching and drypoint on Japanese paper, Gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, 2021.113.21
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Maxime Lalanne, Cadart et Luquet, Le Cavalier, Bastion 63 (The Rider, Bastion 63), 1871, etching on laid paper, Gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, 2021.113.22
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Félix Bracquemond, Alphonse Legros, 1861, etching on laid paper, Gift of George Matthew Adams in memory of his mother, Lydia Havens Adams, 1946.4.12
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Maxime Lalanne, John Constable, Weymouth Bay, 1873, etching on laid paper, Gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, 2021.113.36
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Félix Bracquemond, Charles Meryon, 1854, etching in brown-black and red on laid paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.2101
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Félix Bracquemond, Hans Holbein the Younger, Erasmus, 1863, etching on chine collé on wove paper, Gift of Addie Burr Clark, 1946.9.21
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Félix Bracquemond, Albert de Balleroy, François Liénard, The Hare (Le Lièvre), 1865 (1872 edition), etching and stipple on wove paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2005.45.1

Organization
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris

The exhibition is curated by Mary Morton, curator and head of the department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art; Kimberly Jones, curator of 19th-century French paintings, National Gallery of Art; Anne Robbins, curator of paintings, Musée d’Orsay; and Sylvie Patry, former director of conservation and collections, Musée d’Orsay.

Other venues
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, March 25–July 14, 2024

Sponsors
The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation has provided major support for the exhibition. 

The exhibition in Washington is also generously supported by the Hata Foundation, the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Fund, the Annenberg Fund for the International Exchange of Art, the Edwin L. Cox Exhibition Fund, and the Director’s Circle of the National Gallery of Art. 

Passes
Admission is always free and passes are not required