The Salon of 1874

In spring 1874 Paris had two exhibitions to talk about. On 15 April a group of independent painters, among them Monet, Renoir and Degas, opened their own show on the boulevard des Capucines. On 1 May the official Salon opened, and this canvas hung in it, a picture of that very exhibition. The pictures on its painted wall were real entries that year, and the painter waited for the catalogue to come out so he could letter their correct numbers onto the frames. Critics called it perhaps the most original painting on show. The arrangement is invented, though. Works were hung in alphabetical order of the artists' names, so the windmill, the forest cart and the portrait seen side by side here were really in different rooms. In 2024 the Musée d'Orsay showed it in its exhibition Paris 1874, Inventing Impressionism.