Charles Durand

Paris, Salon, 1883, no. 861
Versailles, Musée de Versailles, July 1883, no. 193
Lyon, Salon Lyonnais, 1886-1887, no. 207

"Le Salon de Paris," supplement to Le Parnasse, no. 68, May 15, 1883, p. 8
C.S., "Exposition de Versailles," La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, no. 30, September 29, 1883, p. 243
Joséphin Péladan, L'art ochlocratique: Salons de 1882 & de 1883, Paris, 1888, p. 90

Unlined. Isolated areas of widely patterned craquelure, most noticeably in female figure. Under UV: Varnish fluoresces unevenly, and surface is somewhat difficult to read. 1 inch area of inpainting to upper left corner, and scattered strokes of inpainting through the background and in the red fabric at left.
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In this remarkable composition, exhibited at the Salon of 1883, Charles Durand illustrates a scene from Edmund and Jules Goncourt’s 1867 novel, Manette Salomon, which explores the trials and triumphs of artists in mid-nineteenth century Paris.  Two artists, whose likenesses seem to recall those of the Goncourt brothers themselves, gaze upon the title character posed on a chair draped in fabric.  Her illuminated body and discarded white dress are highlighted within the artist’s dimly lit atelier, crowded with a myriad of objects, oil sketches, plaster casts, and props.  Anatole observes from a chair at the edge of the studio as his friend Coriolis, with brushes and palette in hand, adjusts the pose of his wife and muse, Manette.  Her prominent position here parallels her role in the Goncourt’s novel, for Coriolis’s career would be both propelled and ruined by his tireless efforts to capture the beauty, charm, and irresistible features of Manette Salomon.