XV - Works On Paper - Marty de Cambiaire (English)

As for lithographic prints, very few have survived,
notably the copy “deposed” (registered with the
Ministry of the Interior) on 15 September 1866,
which is today in the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France (Est. BOSCH 001).
Jaime Bosch was born in Barcelona and lived
in Paris since 1853. He was part of the circle of
Manet’s friends and regularly played at the concerts
organized by the painter’s wife, an excellent pianist
herself. He performed in the company of the
talented Zacharie Astruc, among many other artistic
personalities. The virtuoso guitarist is also said to
have posed for the figure of the Mexican general
standing behind the emperor in The Execution
of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (Kunsthalle
Mannheim) painted by Manet in 1868-69.
Opus 85, Plainte Moresque was composed in October
1866 and dedicated to Manet, who undertook
the cover design. The painter chose to present the
composer such as he appeared to his audience at a
private musical evening in Manet’s home: a faraway
expression on his face, the fingers on the guitar,
seated on a bamboo chair or stool. This seat, typical
of the Napoleon III style, is recognisable in other
works, notably in the Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus
(Ashmolean Museum, Cambridge), unfinished
version of The Balcony in the collection Musée
d’Orsay. In both works Manet portrays a close friend
of Suzanne Manet, the young violinist Fanny Claus.
The likeness of this portrait of Bosch made by Manet
is very close if we judge by the portrait drawn in
1875 by Ernest-Philippe Boetzel (Carcassonne,
Musée des Beaux-Arts) and the one etched in 1883
by Félix Bracquemond, as well as by the photograph
of Bosch in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Manet however chose to accentuate his Spanish
personality by making him wear a chaquetilla (short
black jacket) and a sombrero de catite (round hat).
The graphic technique used for handling the face
is highly sophisticated: the artist skilfully combines
small crayon hatchings with touches of grey, black
and pink wash enabling a play of light and shadows
that animates his face and draws attention to the
strange expression of the musician and his magnetic
gaze.
In the words of Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet redrew
his design on the lithographic stone “with superb
assurance”. The lithograph shows the figure of the
musician shortened at the bottom, with lower legs
barely indicated, the dedication A. Ed. Manet at
upper right disappears while the painter’s signature
is added at lower left. The artist’s total commitment
to this relatively ‘minor’ project is seen not just in
the great care taken over his preparatory drawing,
but in the fact that every aspect of the cover design
was supervised by Manet who signed his ‘bon
à tirer’ for the final print now belonging to the
Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.
Jaime Bosch also made dedications of pieces of
music to the painter Carolus-Duran, as well as to
Ernest Hoschedé, who was their mutual friend
and patron in the 1870s, famous for being the first
owner of Monet’s famous Impression, sSoleil levant.
The present drawing thus throws a fascinating
light on relationships of editors, artists, writers and
musicians in the social and cultural circles in Paris.
Bosch played “chez Manet”, whereas Lorenzo
Pagans played “chez Degas”, and Madame Meurice
and Madame Charpentier were happy to see them
both perform at their salons. Moreover, it reminds
Manet’s longstanding interest to Spain and Spanish
painting which was confirmed during a short but
determinative journey to Madrid in September 1865,
barely a year before this portrait was drawn. This
hispanophilia, shared by his friends and relations
including Zacharie Astruc et Lola de Valence,
finds an interesting continuation in the history of
the drawing: Juliet Wilson-Bareau found that the
buyer at the 1884 sale was almost certainly Alfred
Morel-Fatio (1850-1924), a celebrated hispanist
who worked in the Manuscript Department at the
Bibliothèque Nationale and who is the author of the
department’s Catalogue des manuscrits espagnols et
portugais (1881-1882) 1 .
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