Composition
School of Velázquez, La Réunion des cavaliers, Musée du Louvre
The painting copied by Whistler has been variously described as La Réunion des cavaliers, Gathering of Gentlemen, and (on the Louvre website) A Meeting of Thirteen People. 1 Once owned by María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, it was acquired as a work of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660) by the Musée du Louvre in 1851 from Ferd. Laneuville for 6500 francs (£260), and was then called Réunion de portraits (Gathering of portraits). 2 For some time attributed to the School of Velázquez, it was recently attributed to Juan Battista Martinez del Mazo (ca 1612–1667), Velasquez's pupil and son-in-law. It may have originally been a section of a larger panoramic figure composition by Velázquez and Mazo. 3
Édouard Manet, Les petits cavaliers after Velázquez, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
It was later copied by Edouard Manet (1832-1883); his etching and aquatint copy, reproduced above, is dated 1874-1883. 4
Technique
Unknown.
Conservation History
Unknown.
Frame
Unknown.
Notes:
1: 'Madrid School', dated ca 1650, oil on canvas, 47.2 × 77.9 cm, Musée du Louvre, INV. 943, Musée du Louvre (at louvre.fr).
2: Stirling 1855 [more] , p. 229 (listed as 'Meeting of Artists'); Curtis 1883 [more] (cat. no. 25).
3: Tinterow/Lacambre 2003[more] , p. 206.
4: Rijksmuseum website at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl. See Rouart & Wildenstein 1975 [more] , vol. 1 (cat. no. 21).
Last updated: 21st November 2019 by Margaret
