Camille PISSARRO writes to Claude MONET for the MANET banquet.

Camille Pissarro (1830.1903)

Autograph letter signed to Claude Monet.

Three pages in-8°.

Éragny-sur-Epte. Undated [late December 1884 or early January 1885]

“The letter written to the Manet banquet is designed in such a way that I abstain from being part of it. »

Remarkable letter from Pissarro to Monet evoking the publication of A Rebours by Huysmans, the death of Edouard Manet's brother, Gustave, and the banquet planned in homage to their late friend Edouard Manet. Magnificent testimony to the friendship between these two masters of impressionism.

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“ My dear Monet, I will be in Paris around January 5 , I hope we will see each other there, because I suppose that the dinner will take place on the 7th or 8th [the Manet banquet was held on January 5, 1885], in case change of mind I will know.

I sent you Huysmans' book [Huysmans had just published his masterpiece A rebours ], I was planning to write to you every day but I had so much to do here. Have you received notice of the death of Gustave Manet? Well certainly... bad luck, the family, this is a name which will only be perpetuated by the works of the master [Edouard Manet], the descendants being lacking until now.

You will be very kind, my dear Monet, to wish to present on my part and that of Lucien all our respects to Madame Hoschedé and her family. In my last letter I was so surprised and in such a hurry by the post that I had the rudeness to omit a few lines of thanks to Madame Hoschedé to thank her for her kind reception. Would I be forgiven? see you soon my dear Monet. I shake your hands and wish you and your children a happy new year. C. Pissarro.

NB. I forgot. The letter written to the Manet banquet is designed in such a way that I abstain from being part of it.

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The Manet banquet was held (at the initiative of Antonin Proust) on January 5, 1885, at Father Lathuile's house - a high place for Impressionist meetings celebrated by Manet in his 1879 work: Chez le Père Lathuile - , to celebrate the anniversary of the Manet exhibition at the École des Beaux-Arts and pay homage to the master who died on April 30, 1883.

Paul Alexis Trublot published these few lines in the Cri du Peuple on January 8, seeming to confirm Pissarro's presence: “ So, there were one hundred and thirty of us.  —We said a hundred and fifty, even two hundred; but nothing should be exaggerated: there were one hundred and thirty of us. — The best thing about the dinner was the menu, because this menu was offered to each guest, with a strong water, reproducing Chez le Père Lathuile, one of the most lively paintings of Edouard Manet. The huge horseshoe table present was a nice sight: but we felt too elbow-deep. The names ? Should I tell you them? With a beard and shorter hair, a little older, Mr. Antonin Proust was seated between MM. Zola and Fantin-Latour. The friendly Mr. Leenhoff, the young brother-in-law whom Manet loved like a son, stood opposite him. Then pell-mell, colleagues and painters. The latter could divide it into two groups: on the one hand, “the impressionists” in their entirety: MM. Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir, Caillebotte, Raffaëlli, then a large number of those whom I will call “the opportunists of painting”. — MM. Gervex, Roll, Cazin and Gœnœutte, for example - that is to say flexible, clever people, who, influenced by Manet, undoubtedly practice modernism, but without breaking with the school..."