Manet and Photography: Looking at Olympia

Abstract

Édouard Manet’s life and work have been studied using photographic sources that provide essential yet still underutilised information about his oeuvre and artistic process. Beginning in the 1860s, Manet employed the firm of Anatole Godet to photograph his paintings, probably as records of stock, and this article considers how Manet may have used these photographs as the basis for tracings and watercolours that served as intermediaries in the production of etchings after several of his canvases. Godet also photographed the posthumous retrospective of Manet’s work in 1884, providing the only known images of that landmark exhibition. After Manet’s death, Léon Leenhoff, the son of Manet’s wife Suzanne Leenhoff, hired Fernand Lochard to photograph works remaining in the artist’s studio, and in several other locations, to illustrate a corresponding inventory. The photographs were annotated by Léon with information about each work including its exhibition history and bound into albums. While select scholars have engaged with these important materials, Manet’s use of photography and the role photography played in the posthumous dissemination of his works remain insufficiently understood. Taking Olympia as a case study, this article aims to demonstrate how these archival sources contribute to Manet studies.