Puzzling Pictures: 'The Execution of Maximilian', about 1867-8

Edouard Manet, 1832-1883

NG3294

This picture consists of four fragments cut out of a painting by Manet. We know more or less what the whole composition looked like from other paintings of the subject by Manet. At the time of Manet's death in 1883 the painting was already in poor condition. The left-hand section may even have been cut off by Manet himself. Degas later acquired the fragments in order to reconstruct - at least partially - the original. This explains why the picture looks so peculiar.

But why was it cut up? Was the subject of the execution of the Emperor of Mexico - who had been elected at the instigation of Napoleon III of France but then abandoned to his fate - thought to be too politically disturbing as well as too distasteful to sell well? Or had Manet himself come to feel that the composition was not entirely successful? The pieces all look fragmentary but then that was an effect which artists at that time deliberately pursued. A daring cropping of the image will be found in many paintings by the Impressionists.

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