Ambroise Vollard: Manet in Venice

"Grand Canal, Venice" by Edouard Manet

"A few days later, M. Toché and I met again. 'You tell me you often had the chance of seeing Manet at work?' I said, eager to hear more. He replied, 'In Venice I used to go and join him almost every day. The lagoons, the palaces, the old houses, scaled and mellowed by time, offered him an inexhaustible variety of subjects. But his preference was for out-of-the-way corners. I asked him if I might follow him in my gondola. 'As much as you like,' he told me. 'When I am working, I pay no attention to anything but my subject. Now and then he would make a gesture of annoyance that set his boat rocking, and I would see his palette knife scraping away with ferocity. But all at once I would hear the refrain of a song, or a few notes whistled gaily. Then he would call out to me, 'I'm getting on, I'm getting on! When things are going well, I have to express my pleasure aloud.'

When he had been working hard, he would set out, by way of relaxation, to discover Venice. Madame Manet would accompany him. After dinner he would become talkative and did not scruple to tease Madame Manet in my presence. But a fisherman had only to start singing a barcarolle,* or a guitar to throb, and instantly Manet would fall silent, caught by the charm of nocturnal Venice. His wife, who was an excellent pianist, expressed the delight it would be to her to play Schubert, Chopin or Schumann in such surroundings. So with her consent I laid a little plot. 

One evening after dinner I invited her and her husband to come for a trip on the water. I had our boat rowed towards a canal beside the Bridge of Sighs. There a wide barge was moored, of the kind used for household removals. I had had a piano put aboard her, concealed by runs, and Mme Manet, as arranged, had been complaining of the rocking of our gondola, and I suggested we should get into this other boat, which was much steadier. 

We started off in the direction of San Giorgio Maggiore. Suddenly, under Mme Manet's fingers, a melody arose. I t was a romance of Schumann's. That moment, Manet told us later, left him with the most delicious impression of his whole stay in Venice."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard. Hear a beautiful barcarolle sung on a gondola! )