Norbert Goeneutte (1854; 1894) And Workshop. Lunch On The Grass Around 1880

Norbert Goeneutte (1854; 1894) and workshop. Lunch on the grass circa 1880

Canvas measuring 120 cm by 82 cm.
Frame measuring 148 cm by 108 cm.

The artist is freely inspired by Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863, while avoiding its sulphurous side. No Victorine Meurend, Manet's muse, posing naked among the other dressed guests. (Victorine Meurend also posed for Norbert Goeneutte)

[…] Manet claims in Le nuit sur l'herbe the heritage of the old masters and is inspired by two works from the Louvre. Titian's Concert champêtre, then attributed to Giorgione, provides the subject, while the arrangement of the central group is inspired by an engraving after Raphael: The Judgment of Paris. But in Luncheon on the Grass, the presence of a naked woman among dressed men is not justified by any mythological or allegorical pretext. The modernity of the characters makes this almost unreal scene obscene, in the eyes of his contemporaries. Manet had fun with it, nicknamed his painting “The Square Part”. […]. With Luncheon on the Grass, Manet does not respect any of the accepted conventions, but imposes a new freedom in relation to the subject and traditional modes of representation. Orsay Museum
 
Norbert Goeneutte (1854; 1894)

Eldest son of a family of six children, Norbert Gœneutte was born on July 23, 1854 at 35 rue Louis-le-Grand in Paris, at the home of his father, installed in the capital in 1850. In the 1860s, he was a boarder at Villiers le Bel, with his older sister Reine. He then studied at Lycées Condorcet. In 1871, he obtained his baccalaureate, his father placed him with a notary and died some time later. He convinced his mother that this profession was not for him and he entered the School of Fine Arts in the workshop of Isidore Pils, who died in 1875. His replacement Henri Lehmann was not appreciated by the students who wrote to Edouard Manet to receive his teaching. The latter refuses, part remains with Lehmann. Gœneutte then moved into the workshop which was that of Eugène Devéria (1805-1865) in Montmartre. He frequented the restaurant Chez le père Lathuille where he met Édouard Manet as well as Emile Zola, and a mutual friend, the engraver Marcellin Desboutin, who would introduce him to his art. There he also met Degas and Renoir who had him pose on rue Saint Georges for his paintings of Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette, La Balançoire and La Tonnelle. There he also met Victor Vignon and Gustave Caillebotte, also regulars of the place. It was in this establishment that the banquet for Manet's retrospective exhibition at the Paris School of Fine Arts was organized. With his mother, his sister Reine, and his brother Charles, he moved into a house, " La Villa Musette”, having belonged to the engraver Martinez and found by Paul Gachet. He then created the Portrait of Doctor Gachet (Paris, Musée d'Orsay). A highly qualified engraver, he masters all techniques: mezzotint, aquatint, soft varnish, drypoint, roulette. Between 1871 and 1894, Norbert Gœneutte engraved more than two hundred works. Gœneutte, who died on October 9, 1894 from tuberculosis, rests near the Van Gogh brothers in the Auvers sur Oise cemetery.