L’Évasion de Rochefort

1880/1881

not on display
Édouard Manet1832 Paris – 1883 Paris
Édouard Manet has 14 works online.
There are 1395 paintings online.
As member of the Paris Commune and opponent of Napoleon III, the journalist and politician Henri Rochefort (1830-1913), a supporter of radical socialism and founder of the magazine 'La Lanterne', was deported to a penal camp in Nouméa (New Caledonia) in 1873, from where he managed to escape to America (and later back to Europe) on the evening of March 19, 1874. Due to an amnesty, he returned to Paris on July 21, 1880. At the top of the picture, on the horizon, is the Australian three-master 'Peace - Ease - Comfort', which took in the fugitives. On the rowing boat is Rochefort, steering, with his companion Olivier Pain (1845-1885) opposite him. Manet exaggerates the real events and transfers the scene, which takes place in a harbor, to the open sea. - A second, smaller version of the painting is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; in the Salon, Manet ultimately exhibited only the portrait of Rochefort, also painted in 1881 (Hamburger Kunsthalle).
Also known as
Evasion de Rochefort Rocheforts Flucht Rochefort’s Escape L’evasion d’Henri Rochefort
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
image: 143 x 114 cm
Inventory number
1955/0009
Credit line
Kunsthaus Zürich, Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde, purchased with the bequest of Dr. Adolf Jöhr, 1955