Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917) met for the first time in the grand gallery of the Musée du Louvre. It was the early 1860s; both artists were in their late 20s and frequented the museum to copy Old Master paintings as part of their practices. As the story goes, on that day, Degas was copying Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of the Infanta Margarita (c.1660) directly on copper plate, when he was interrupted by Manet. Degas’s unconventional process shocked Manet, who (allegedly) declared, “How audacious of you to etch that way, without any preliminary drawing, I would not dare do the same!”
This first meeting was a coincidence, but, in retrospect, it also seemed slightly fated. Manet and Degas were born only two years apart; they both came from relatively affluent, bourgeois Parisian families; and they both would alter the tenor of modern painting. The Louvre incident was the first of many more meetings, eventually opening into a significant artistic dialogue, a friendship, and at times, a rivalry.
The caring, complicated, and competitive relationship between these two artists is now the focus of an extensive exhibition, of this year through January 7, 2024.
