Rue Mosnier decorated with Flags

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Rue Mosnier decorated with Flags: Edouard Manet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Edouard Manet Oil Painting - Rue Mosnier decorated with Flags

Keywords: Rue, Mosnier, decorated, Flags

Work Overview: Rue Mosnier decorated with Flags
Edouard Manet
Date: 1878; Paris, France *
Style: Impressionism
Genre: cityscape
Media: oil, canvas
65.4 × 80 cm (25 3/4 × 31 1/2 in.)
Location: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, US

To commemorate the recent Exposition Universelle, itself a celebration of luxury and prosperity, the French government declared June 30, 1878, a national holiday. The holiday, called the Fête de la Paix (Celebration of Peace), also marked France's recovery from the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and the bloody, divisive Paris Commune that followed. From his second-floor window, Édouard Manet captured the holiday afternoon with his most precise, staccato brushwork in a patriotic harmony of the reds, whites, and blues of the French flag that waves from the new buildings' windows.

The urban street was a principal subject of Impressionist and Modernist painting; many artists aimed to show not only the transformation and growth of the Industrial Age but how it also affected society. Manet's eyes saw both elegant passengers in hansom cabs and, in the foreground, a worker carrying a ladder. The hunched amputee on crutches, perhaps a war veteran or beggar, passes by fenced-in debris left from the construction of a new train track. Manet's sensitivity to the associated costs and sacrifices tempered his optimistic view of national pride and newfound prosperity.

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Edouard Manet's ''Rue Mosnier, Paris, Decorated with Flags on June 30, 1878,'' a poignant study of an aging veteran on crutches limping along a festive street, was bought last night for $26.4 million by the J. Paul Getty Museum of Malibu, Calif.

The price more than doubled the record at auction for a work by the artist and was the highest paid in a sale at Christie's in New York of 14 paintings from Paul Mellon's collection.

The sale of the Manet represented a high point in Christie's sale, which had decidedly mixed results. Of the 97 artworks offered, 29 did not sell in an auction that totaled $232.4 million, the highest figure in history for an art sale, but below Christie's estimate of $241.5 million to $320.5 million. 'We Never Dreamed'

Many buyers were delighted - including John Walsh, director of the Getty Museum. Mr. Walsh said by telephone from Malibu that he had long admired the painting but always thought Mr. Mellon would donate it to a museum.

''Lucky us - we never dreamed we would have a chance at this painting,'' Mr. Walsh said. ''We envisioned it hanging someday in the National Gallery in Washington. We are ecstatic. There could hardly be a more important Manet.''

Manet painted the street scene on the afternoon of June 30, 1878, a national holiday. It is one of three different views of the street. Another of them, which depicts workers paving the street, was auctioned at Christie's in London in 1986 for $11 million. Until yesterday, that price was the highest ever paid at auction for a work by Manet.

Mr. Walsh said he much prefers the painting the Getty bought to the other two street scenes.

''It is both the most brilliant and the most serious - a picture with an edge,'' he said. ''It is Manet's ironical eye looking at contrasts in the big city. I think most people would agree this picture is more exciting visually and it has a barb.'' A Reflection of the Market

Michael Findlay, who heads sales of Impressionist and modern art at Christie's, said the sale says something about the current market.

''It means simply that there were far fewer people willing to buy paintings between $10 million and $20 million than there are willing to spend between $1 million and $10 million,'' Mr. Findlay said. ''We saw extraordinary prices up to $10 million for artists whose works had previously sold, at the most, in very, very low millions - including Brancusi, Vuillard and Vlaminck.''

Japanese buyers acquired many of the art works that brought prices of $1 milloon to $5 million. Kazuo Fujii, a Tokyo dealer, bought three works: a water scene by Paul Signac for $2.75 million, a street scene by Maurice Utrillo for $825,000 and Tsuguji Foujita's ''Children With a Doll'' for $3.74 million, a record for a work by the artist. The buyer who paid the most at the sale held paddle No. 232 and bought nine works for a total of $28.16 million. He was identified by other dealers in the room as the representative of Yasumichi Morishita, chairman of the Aichi Corporation of Tokyo, a finance company, whose art gallery Aska became a major shareholder last month of Christie's.

Several art dealers at the sale said they were not surprised by the slackened of buying seen at the auction.

''A certain amount of sanity returned to the art market tonight,'' said Richard Gray, a Chicago art dealer. ''Maybe the auction houses have been a little more agressive than they needed to be and promised consignors too much. Now they have got egg on their faces. As prices continue to escalate, the buying pool tends to shrink a little. The pictures of real quality brought realistic prices - and then some.'' 'Fierce Competition'

Thomas Gibson, a London dealer, said: ''I certainly did not see it as a crack in the market. There is still incredibly fierce competition for the best works, but people are no longer prepared to bid against huge reserves.'' Reserves are the prices determined by the auction house and the consignor, below which an owner will not sell.

Among the disappointments at the sale were the 7 works out of 14 offered from the Mellon Collection that did not sell. The most important of these was Picasso's ''Death of a Harlequin,'' from 1905, which Mr. Findlay said ''is a fairly serious subject.'' The three Edgar Degas wax sculptures of dancers that did not sell presented another problem: they must be kept under temperature control, he said.

Constantin Brancusi's ''Sleeping Muse III,'' a marble head from 1917 was sold for $8.25 million. Edouard Vuillard's study of two women at a dressing table, surrounded by flowers, brought $7.7 million, and Maurice de Vlaminck's river scene of the Seine from 1906 was sold for $7.15 million.

The total for the entire auction of 96 works, of which 68 were sold, was the highest ever for a single session sale of art. It exceeded the $204.8 million paid on May 9 at Sotheby's in New York at its sale of Impressionist and Modern art.

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