Copy after Delacroix's Barque of Dante by Manet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: Copy after Delacroix's "Bark of Dante"

Artist: Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)

Date: ca. 1859

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 13 x 16 1/8 in. (33 x 41 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.114


In 1855 Manet visited the studio of preeminent Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix to request permission to copy his celebrated Barque of Dante (1822). The painting was displayed that year at the Exposition Universelle, although it was usually on view and accessible for study at the Musée du Luxembourg, the public museum for contemporary art. Manet ultimately produced two versions: a more literal copy and this freely executed color study.

This is one of two versions by Manet of Delacroix's celebrated painting of 1822 (Musée du Louvre, Paris). The other one, a more literal copy (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons), dates from about 1855, when the original was on view at the Exposition Universelle. The present freely executed color study is thought to have been painted about 1859, the year of Manet's first Salon submission.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436949