That Time Manet Dueled One of His Critics
A witness statement by novelist Émile Zola relates the sword fight between the painter and critic Edmond Duranty after he penned a lukewarm review of Manet’s work.
On the morning of February 23, 1870, painter Edouard Manet and art critic Edmond Duranty traveled to the Saint-Germain-en-Laye forest on the outskirts of Paris. Relations between the two former friends had become tense: After Duranty published a lukewarm review of Manet’s work, the artist reportedly slapped the writer at the popular Café Guerbois. Then, Duranty challenged Manet to a duel.
Both men selected observers to bear witness to their sword fight. Manet decided to bring French novelist Émile Zola, who produced a handwritten account of the incident that could fetch up to £6,000 (~$7,565) in an online Christie's sale closing December 15.
Thomas Venning, Christie's head of Books and Manuscripts in London, told Hyperallergic that the document uses the exact same words and phrases as one might find in other standardized chronicles of such incidents. But the “slightly mad” duel between the critic and the aggrieved painter, he added, was made stranger by the fact that the era’s pre-eminent novelist penned the witness statement.
