Place de la Concorde (Degas)

Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde by Edgar Degas
ArtistEdgar Degas
Year1875[1]
MediumOil on canvas
MovementImpressionism
Dimensions78.4 cm × 117.5 cm (30.9 in × 46.3 in)
LocationHermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Place de la Concorde or Viscount Lepic and his Daughters Crossing the Place de la Concorde is an 1875 oil painting by Edgar Degas.[2] It depicts the cigar-smoking Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, his daughters Eylau and Jeanine, his dog, and a solitary man on the left at Place de la Concorde in Paris. The man on the left may be the playwright Ludovic Halévy.[3] The Tuileries Gardens can be seen in the background, behind a stone wall.

Many art historians believe that the large amount of negative space, the cropping, and the way in which the figures are facing in random directions were influenced by photography.

Provenance and exhibition history

Despite being the painting's subject, Place de la Concorde was never owned by Ludovic Lepic and Edgar Degas did not paint it for him. The painting remained in the possession of Degas, who never exhibited it on his own, until it was sold to Paul Durand-Ruel.[4] In 1911, the German art collector Otto Gerstenberg purchased the painting from Durand-Ruel for 120,000 franks. The painting, along with the rest of Gerstenberg's collection, was left to his daughter Margarete Scharf after his death in 1935. In 1943, during World War II, most of Gerstenberg's art collection was stored in the bunker of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The rest of the collection was stored elsewhere in the Victoria firm and was destroyed in an air raid. After the war, the surviving paintings of Gerstenberg's collection were looted by the Soviet Union.[5][6][7]

Place de la Concorde had been assumed to have been destroyed for almost five decades following World War II. In 1994, the Hermitage Museum publicly announced that it was in possession of more than 70 French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings that had been looted from private German collections by the Soviet Union during the war. Along with Edgar Degas's Place de la Concorde, the Hermitage Museum announced it was in possession of paintings by other artists including Paul Cézanne, Honoré Daumier, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. The paintings had been locked in small storage room on the second floor of the museum, and had only been known to a handful of museum personnel.[7][8][9] Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Hermitage Museum's director, had only seen the paintings for the first time in 1991.[10]

In 1995, the Hermitage Museum held an exhibition titled Hidden Treasures Revealed which displayed 74 looted paintings, including Edgar Degas's Place de la Concorde. Many of these artworks had never been exhibited before. Of the 74 paintings, 73 had been taken from private collections. Only one painging by Claude Monet had been taken from a public museum collection. Five of these paintings, including Place de la Concorde, had been taken from the collection of Otto Gerstenberg.[7][9] Nearly 600,000 people attended the exhibition in the first few months of the show.[11]

The exhibition Hidden Treasures Revealed proved to be controversial due to it's displaying of looted artworks. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Hermitage Museum sought to become more open with the rest of the world by displaying these previously hidden artworks.[8] Despite previous agreements between Russian and Germany in 1990 and 1992 to return unlawfully looted artworks, Russian officials argued that only artworks stolen by individual soldiers could be considered unlawfully taken, and that artworks taken under official orders did not need to be returned to their previous owners.[10][12] To this day, Place de la Concorde remains in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.

See also

  • Count Lepic and His Daughters – an earlier 1871 painting of the Lepic family by Edgar Degas
  • Otto Krebs – a German art collector. Paintings from his looted collection were also featured in the exhibition Hidden Treasures Revealed

References

  1. ^ "Degas, Edgar (1834-1917) Place de la Concorde". The State Hermitage Museum. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  2. ^ "Degas: Place de la Concorde. From the Masterpieces Reborn series". The State Hermitage Museum. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
  3. ^ Kostenevich 1995, p. 71-2.
  4. ^ Kostenevich 1995, p. 71.
  5. ^ Kostenevich 1995, p. 17-8.
  6. ^ Kostenevich 1995, p. 79.
  7. ^ a b c Erlanger, Steven (30 March 1995). "Hermitage, in Its Manner, Displays Its Looted Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  8. ^ a b Russell, John (4 October 1994). "Hermitage Reveals It Hid Trove of Impressionist Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  9. ^ a b Knight, Christopher (20 March 1995). "COLUMN ONE : Displaying the Spoils of War : The Hermitage is about to exhibit Impressionist masterpieces the Soviet army took out of Nazi Germany. The dispute over who has a right to such 'trophy art' is fueled by the lure of big money and the bitterness of old foes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  10. ^ a b Hiatt, Fred (30 March 1995). "STALIN'S GERMAN WAR TROPHIES DAZZLE THE ART WORLD". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  11. ^ Sardar, Zahid (12 November 1995). "For the first time since World War II, over 70 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces secreted away in Russia, are being shown to the world at the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. The accompanying exhibit catalog, "Hidden Treasures Revealed"". CT Insider. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  12. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (23 January 1995). "Revelations and Agonizing On Soviet Seizure of Artwork". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 December 2023.

Bibliography

  • Kostenevich, Albert (1995). Hidden Treasures Revealed: Impressionist Masterpieces and Other Important French Paintings Preserved by The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3432-9.

External links