Max Ernst / Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre / 1944

Max Ernst
Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre
1944
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Creator Name: Ernst, Max
Creator Nationality: German
Creator Role: Artist
Creator Dates/Places: 1891 - 1976
Gender: M
Creator Birth Place: Brühl, Germany
Creator Death Place: Paris
Creator Name-CRT: Max Ernst
Title: Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre
Title Type: Primary
Title: Luncheon on the Grass
Title Type: alternate
View: Full View
Creation Start Date: 1944
Creation End Date: 1944
Creation Date: 1944
Object Type: Paintings
Classification Term: Painting
Materials and Techniques: oil on canvas
Dimensions: Overall: 68cm x 150cm
Inscriptions: signed and dated lower right: max ernst 44
AMICA Contributor: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number: 2002.55
Credit Line: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund
Copyright: ? 1944 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP, Paris
Rights: http://www.clevelandart.org/museum/disclaim2.html
Provenance: William N. Copley, New York, acquired from the artist (1948); (Sotheby, Parke-Bernet, NY, William N. Copley Collection, Nov. 5-6, 1979, no. 51.); (Sotheby, Parke-Bernet, NY, Julien Levy Collection, Nov. 5, 1979, no. 50. ??) Daniel Filipacchi, Paris/New York
Style or Period: Germany, 20th century
Context: The German Surrealist Max Ernst painted Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbre just a few years after fleeing to America from Nazi persecution in Europe. This painting parodies Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (see photo), which historians associate with the birth of modern art. Inverting Manet's image, Ernst substituted a fish for the nude woman and eliminated the other figures. The word herbre (rather than herbe) may be an English phonetic pun for "her-bra," creating the amusing phrase "the luncheon on her bra" or "eating on her bra." X-radiographs reveal that the large black rectangle at the left was not part of the original composition. Rather, the white blanket had extended into that area, where it met a large tree-the only visible remnant of which is the green branch sprouting from the upper right of the rectangle and reaching across the sky. In revising the composition, Ernst truncated the blanket and inserted a landscape using the Surrealist technique of décalcomanie: various materials are pressed against wet paint, then retracted, leaving abstract patterns suggesting trees, rocks, and shrubs.
AMICA ID: CMA_.2002.55
AMICA Library Year: 2003
Media Metadata Rights:

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