David to Cézanne: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings

June 6 through September 8, 2002
Image of Degas drawing

David to Cézanne: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings was the Morgan's first large-scale exhibition of French nineteenth-century drawings from its holdings. In 1986 it mounted an exhibition of French drawings from this period. Although it was modest in size—comprising about forty works—the presentation was well received by the press and public alike. Since then, largely because of the promised gift of the Thaw Collection, this aspect of the Morgan's collection of drawings grew considerably and in 2002 encompassed more than three hundred.

Over one hundred drawings from the Morgan, as well as from private collections, were on view. The exhibition began with a few examples by eighteenth-century artists, such as Jacques-Louis David, Girodet, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, and Pierre Paul Prud'hon, whose artistic sensibilities anticipate the major trends of nineteenth-century French art. While the exhibition featured the work of two nineteenth-century exponents of neoclassicism and romanticism—Ferdinand Eugène Victor Delacroix and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres—it also included an extensive representation of the work of Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, as well as examples of later Impressionist and Symbolist painters, such as Paul Cézanne, Edouard Manet, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Georges Seurat.

David to Cézanne: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings is made possible by a bequest from Lore Heinemann and by Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden, with additional assistance from the Thaw Charitable Trust. The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Lore Heinemann.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
Emilie Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs
Pastel over lithograph
9 1/16 x 7 7/8 inches (230 x 200 mm)
Signed and dated in pastel at lower right, Degas / 85
Thaw Collection; 1997.88

Selected images

Image of Paul Cexanne drawing
Paul Cézanne
(1839–1906)

Trees

Thaw Collection

Image of Edgar Degas drawing
Edgar Degas
(1834–1917)

Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, 1877/85

Thaw Collection

Image of Georges Seurat drawing
Georges Seurat
(1859–1891)

Nurse with a Child's Carriage

Thaw Collection

Odilon Redon
(1840–1916)

Mephistopheles

Thaw Collection

Honoré Daumier
(1808–1879)

Two Lawyers Conversing

Thaw Collection