Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

About this painting

Monet, just 25, admired Manet's scandalous 1863 painting of the same name, but planned this over four-metre-tall picnic scene as a more crowd-pleasing take on it: painted in natural daylight, without the shock of nudity, hoping to finally win over the Salon. He posed his friend Frédéric Bazille and Camille Doncieux (later his wife) as models, but abandoned the canvas unfinished before the 1866 Salon, then lost it to his landlord as unpaid rent; six damp years later, mould had ruined its edges. Monet cut away what he could save. Two fragments survive, both in the Musée d'Orsay — only one is shown here.