Edouard Manet – Le Dejeiner sur l’herbe / Luncheon on the Grass – 1863 Oil on Canvas SEP 22 RELEASE DATE

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe / The Luncheon on the Grass – originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) – is an impressionist oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863. 

It depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The artwork broke away from the classical view that art should obey established conventions and sought to achieve timelessness.

The work is now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. A smaller, earlier version of the image is currently exposed at the Courtauld Gallery, London.