- Gallery Text
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When this painting was first exhibited at the Salon of 1870, critic and artist Zacharie Astruc wrote of Bazille, “The sun inundates his canvases.” It appears that Bazille began this composition in his Paris studio but completed the details of the landscape after traveling to the south of France, where he painted a similar landscape of the river Lez. Although individual figures have been identified as derivations from Italian Renaissance sources, including Andrea Mantegna and Sebastiano del Piombo, the inspiration for the subject may have been the modernist novel Manette Salomon (1867), in which the Goncourt brothers describe a brilliantly lit scene of young men bathing. The artist, one of the most important and influential exponents of the “new painting” that gave rise to impressionism, died in the Franco-Prussian War, four years before the first impressionist exhibition was held.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1937.78
- People
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Jean Frédéric Bazille, French (Montpelier 1841 - 1870 Beaune-la-Rolande)
- Title
- Summer Scene (Bathers)
- Other Titles
- Alternate Title: Scene d'Ete / Les Baigneurs
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 1869-1870
- Culture
- French
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/230640
- Location
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Level 2, Room 2700, European and American Art, 19th century, Impressionism and the Late Nineteenth Century
View this object's location on our interactive map - Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 160 x 160.7 cm (63 x 63 1/4 in.)
frame: 192.1 x 192.4 x 12.4 cm (75 5/8 x 75 3/4 x 4 7/8 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: l.l.: F. Bazille, 1869
- Provenance
- The family of Jean Frédéric Bazille [probably Marc Bazille, his brother], by descent; to Mr. and Mrs. Jules-François Meynier de Salinelles, Montpellier gift [1]; to Fogg Art Museum, 1937.
Notes
[1] Mme de Salinelles was a niece of the artist and the daughter of Marc Bazille.
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. F. Meynier de Salinelles
- Accession Year
- 1937
- Object Number
- 1937.78
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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[Unidentified article], L'Amour de l'Art (January 1927), p. 26
G. Poulain, Bazille et ses amis (Paris, France, 1932), no. 36, pp. 152, 171, 176, 218
"A Painting by Bazille", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, November 1937), vol. VII, no. 1, p. 15, repr.
"Cambridge: Gift of a Painting by a Rare Impressionist, Bazille", Art News (November 27, 1937), vol. XXXVI, no. 9, p. 19
[Unidentified article], Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA, November 20, 1937), repr.
"Bazille Painting for Fogg", Art Digest (June 1938), p. 19
Ernst Scheyer, "The Beginnings of Impressionism", The Art Quarterly (Spring 1942), pp. 127-128, ill. p. 124
John Rewald, The History of Impressionism [1st ed.], Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York, NY, 1946), p. 196, repr. p. 199
Bernard Dorival, "La Scene d'Eté de Bazille et Cezanne", Musées de France (May 1949), vol. IV, pp. 94-96
François Daulte, Frederic Bazille et son temps, Pierre Cailler (Geneva, Switzerland, 1952), no. 44, pp. 133, 184, repr.
Anne V. Dort, "French Art of the 19th Century", Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Bulletin (Boston, MA, 1958 -1959), no. 21, pp. 1316-1317
John Canaday, Mainstreams of Modern Art, Henry Holt and Co. (New York, NY, 1959), p. 224-225, repr. in b/w as fig. 260
Pierre Courthion, Au Temps de l'Impressionisme, Nouvelles Editions Françaises (Paris, France, 1964), repr. in color no. 25
Kermit S. Champa, "The Genesis of Impressionism" (Thesis, Harvard University, 1964), Unpublished
Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, exh. cat., Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1967), n.p.
Gerd Muehsam, ed., French Painters and Paintings from the 14th Century to Post-Impressionism, Ungar (New York, NY, 1970), pp. 491-493, repr.
Pierre Courthion, Impressionism, part of The Library of Great Art Movements, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1972), p. 166, repr. in color
Kermit S. Champa, Studies in Early Impressionism, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1973), pp. 89-90, plate 23
John Rewald, The History of Impressionism [4th ed.], Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York, NY, 1973), p. 234
Franz Schulze, "Frederic Bazille: 'Lost Impressionist' ", Art in America (September 1978 - October 1978), p. 101 repr. in color, p. 102 text
F. Daulte and J. Patrice Marandel, Frederic Bazille and Early Impressionism, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, 1978), no. 43, p. 95, text and repr. in b/w
Diane Kelder, The Great Book of French Impressionism, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), color plate 18
John Canaday, Mainstreams of Modern Art [2nd ed.], Holt, Rinehart & Winston (New York, NY, 1981), repr. in b/w fig 309, p. 260
Yann Le Pichon, Les Peintres du Bonheur, Robert Laffont (Paris, France, 1983), repr. in b/w, p. 112
Caroline A. Jones, Modern Art at Harvard: The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press, 1985). With an essay by John Coolidge and a preface by John M. Rosenfield. To accompany the inaugural exhibition at the Sackler Museum, Oct 21 1985 - Jan 5 1986, repr. in color, fig. 15, p. 30
Yann Le Pichon, Sur les Traces de Gauguin, Robert Laffont (Paris, France, 1986), detail repr. in b/w p. 78
Denis Thomas, The Age of the Impressionists, St Michael, Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. (London, England, 1987), repr. in color, p. 118
Belinda Thomson and Michael Howard, Impressionism, Bison Books (London, England, 1988), pp. 26-27, ill.
Therese Dolan, "Frederic Bazille and the Goncourt Brothers' Manette Salomon", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (February 1990), repr. b/w fig. 3, p. 101; text p. 101
Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 75, color plate; pp. 98, 240, repr. b/w cat. no. 328
John Russell Taylor, Impressionist Dreams, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1990), repr. as fig. 1 (frontispiece)
Nobuo Abe, The Great History of Art: Impressionism (Tokyo, Japan, 1990 - 1991), repr. in color p. 70
Bernard Denvir, Impressionism, the Painters and the Paintings, Studio Editions (London, England, 1991), repr. in color fig. 132, p. 142
Michael Kimmelman, "A Tragic Harbinger of the New", The New York Times (New York, NY, November 13, 1992), repr. in b/w
François-Bernard Michel, Bazille: 1841-1870, Bernard Grasset (Paris, France, 1992), repr. in b/w (n.p.)
Musée Fabre, Bazille: Traces et Lieux de la Creation, exh. cat., Musée Fabre (Montpellier, France, 1992), repr. in b/w no. 23, p. 23
François Daulte, Frederic Bazille et les Debuts de l'Impressionisme, La Bibliothèque des Arts (Paris, France, 1992), repr. p. 149, text p. 150
Frederic Bazille: Prophet of Impressionism, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY, 1992), repr. p. 76, p. 118; text p. 119, catalog no. 25
Ingo F. Walther, Malerei des Impressionismus, 1860-1920, Benedikt Taschen Verlag (Köln, Germany, 1992), repr. in color, p. 75
Colin B. Bailey, "Bazille: 'The Astonishing Fullness of Light' ", Apollo (March 1993), p. 185
Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York, NY, 1993), repr. b/w fig. 2, p. 104; mentioned p. 104
Francis Frascina, Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the 19th Century, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1993), repr. b/w p. 176; text p. 174
Pascal Bonafoux, Les Plaisirs et les Jours, Editions Herscher (Paris, France, 1994), p. 46, repr. in color p. 47
Gary Tinterow and Henri Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1994), pp. 274-275, repr. in color fig. 337
Michel Schulman, Frédéric Bazille 1841-1870: Catalogue raisonné, Éditions de l'amateur and Éditions des Catalogues raisonnés (Paris, 1995), pp. 199-202, repr. as cat. 55 on p. 199
Éric de Chassey, L'impressionnisme, Scala (Paris, 1995), repr. on p. 30
Robert Boardingham, Impressionist Masterpieces in American Museums, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1996), pp. 34-5
Doreen Bolger, ed., Thomas Eakins and the Swimming Picture, exh. cat., Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth, TX, 1996), pp. 87-88
Kermit S. Champa and Dianne W. Pitman, Monet & Bazille: A Collaboration, High Museum of Art / Harry Abrams (Atlanta, GA / New York, NY, 1998), Pp. 75-77
Nancy Locke, Manet and the Family Romance, Princeton University Press (Princeton and Oxford, 2001), p. 175; repr. in b/w as fig. 97, p. 178
Norma Broude, ed., Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, Rutgers University Press (New Jersey, 2002), pp. 154-174, repr. in b/w as fig. 55
Margaret Werth, The Joy of Life: the idyllic in French art, circa 1900, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA, 2002), repr. p. 157 as fig. 71
Nancy Locke, "Cezanne's Bathers, Watteau, and the Idea of Fantasy", Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts (2003), vol. 77, no. 1/2, pp. 18-31, p. 28, repr. as fig. 13
Richard R. Brettell, "Eakins and the Male Nude in French Art, 1850-1890", exh. cat., Portland Museum of Art (Portland, ME, 2004), pp. 24-37; repr. in color, p. 38; checklist, p. 145
Randall Griffin, Homer, Eakins and Anschutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age, Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA, 2004), pp. 77-80, repr. in b/w as fig. 33
Henri Loyrette, L'Art francais: le XIXeme siècle, Flammarion (Paris, France, 2006), repr. as fig. 69, p. 252
Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art, Pearson Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2006), pp. 404-407, ill. p. 405
Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 158, rep.
Sebastian Smee, A Summer Sojourn in the South of France. Frame by Frame. Unearthing Hidden Treasures in the Collections of New England Museums, The Boston Globe, section G, page 5, November 13, 2012, section G, page 5, reproduced in color
Gloria Groom, Françoise Tétart-Vittu, and Phillipe Thiébaut, L'impressionnisme Et La Mode, exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay (Paris, 2013), pp.200-201; repr. as fig.16 on p.207
Michel Hilaire and Paul Perrin, Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) and the Birth of Impressionism, exh. cat., Flammarion (Paris, 2016), pp. 18-19, 39-43, 104, 138-144, 152, 165, 188, 203, 213, 248, cat. no. 53, fig. 86 repr. p. 18, 43, 139, 248, and end page
Kathleen Adler, "[Review] Frédéric Bazille", The Burlington Magazine (June 2017), Vol. CLIX, No. 1375, pp. 502-503, pp. 502-503, repr. p. 502
Peter Schjeldahl, "[Review] Second Impressions: Frédéric Bazille's Brief Career Reconsidered", The New Yorker (April 17, 2017), pp. 74-75, repr.
"Friendly Exchanges - Van Gogh and More", Index Magazine ([e-journal], May 30, 2018), https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/friendly-exchanges-van-gogh-and-more, accessed August 15, 2018
Esther Bell and George T.M. Shackelford, ed., Renoir: The Body, The Senses, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Kimbell Art Museum, and Yale University Press (Williamstown, 2019), p. 78
Michel Schulman, Frédéric Bazille 1841-1870: The Digital Catalogue Raisonné (https://www.bazille-catalogue.com/, April 2022), repr.
- Exhibition History
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Annual Exhibition, 1870, Salon, Paris, Paris, 01/01/1870 - 12/31/1870
Retrospective Bazille, Salon, Paris, Paris, 08/01/1910 - 12/31/1910
Retrospective Bazille, Exposition Internationale, Montpellier, 01/01/1927 - 12/31/1927
Modern French Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 11/15/1937 - 12/15/1937
Unidentified Exhibition, Word's Fair, 1940, World's Fair, 1940, New York, 01/01/1940 - 12/31/1940
Exposition Organisee au profit du Musee de Montpellier, Galerie Wildenstein, Paris, 06/01/1950 - 06/30/1950
French Art of the 19th Century, Symphony Hall, Boston, 03/24/1959 - 04/24/1959
Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 10/12/1967 - 12/03/1967
Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
Frederic Bazille and Early Impressionism, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 03/04/1978 - 04/30/1978
Modern Art at Harvard, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/21/1985 - 01/05/1986
Frederic Bazille: Prophet of Impressionism, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 07/11/1992 - 10/04/1992; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, 11/12/1992 - 01/24/1993; Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, 02/14/1993 - 04/25/1993
Les origines de l'Impressionnisme, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 04/19/1994 - 08/08/1994; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Drawings and Prints, New York, 09/14/1994 - 01/08/1995
Origins of Impressionism, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 04/19/1994 - 08/08/1994; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 09/19/1994 - 01/08/1995
Modern Art at Harvard, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 07/31/1999 - 09/26/1999; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa, 10/09/1999 - 11/14/1999; Matsuzakaya Art Museum, Nagoya, 12/02/1999 - 12/27/1999; Oita City Museum, Oita, 01/06/2000 - 02/06/2000; Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki, Ibaraki, 02/11/2000 - 03/26/2000
European Muses, American Masters: 1870 to 1950, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, 06/23/2004 - 10/17/2004
Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 2700 Impressionism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 06/30/2016; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/14/2017 - 01/01/2050
Frédéric Bazille et la naissance de l'impressionnisme, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 06/25/2016 - 10/16/2016; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 11/15/2016 - 03/05/2017; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 04/09/2017 - 07/09/2017
- Subjects and Contexts
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Google Art Project
- Related Works
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu