EMMANUEL BENNER | AT THE WATER'S EDGE

Sale: Christie's, London, 3 December 2003, lot 41

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Paris, Salon, 1887, no. 177, illustrated in the catalogue (as Au Bord de l'eau - At the water-side)

At the Water's Edge is a particularly fine example of the sensual, timeless plein air nudes with which Benner made his name at the annual Paris Salon exhibition. The sculptural, idealised beauty of the figures shows the influence of his teacher Jean-Jacques Henner, as well as bearing comparison with the academic artist Alexandre Cabanel (whose Birth of Venus, now in the Musée d'Orsay, was a favourite of Napoleon III). Ironically, the setting of the present work is not dissimilar to that of Edouard Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, however where Manet sought radically to disrupt the tradition of the nude in western painting, Benner and fellow academic artists sought to respect and develop it.