Famous work · not an exact-location map point
Bazille's Studio
The Batignolles studio Frédéric Bazille shared with the young Impressionists — Manet, Monet, Renoir and Zola are all in the room.
No single real-world viewpoint
A group portrait of the Batignolles Impressionist circle in Bazille's studio at 9 rue de la Condamine; the interior is long gone and the stored marker is the whole city of Paris. The documented studio address stays in the page prose.
Bazille's Studio — at a glance
- Artist
- Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870)
- Year
- 1870
- Movement
- Impressionism (early)
- Place
- 9 rue de la Condamine, Batignolles, Paris 17e
- Viewpoint
- The artist's own studio — the street survives; the studio interior is gone
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 98 × 128 cm
- Now at
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Overview
Bazille's Studio is a group portrait disguised as an interior, painted by Frédéric Bazille early in 1870, months before he was killed in the Franco-Prussian War at twenty-eight. It shows the high, cluttered studio he then shared with Renoir: canvases hung frame to frame on the walls, a stove, a piano, a staircase, and a knot of figures — Édouard Manet and Claude Monet studying a picture on the easel, Bazille himself (painted in by Manet) tall with a palette, Renoir on the stairs, the writer Émile Zola leaning over the rail, Edmond Maître at the piano. It is oil on canvas, about 98 by 128 cm, and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
The story behind the painting
Scholarship From 1868 Bazille rented a studio at 9 rue de la Condamine, in the Batignolles district north of the Gare Saint-Lazare, where the future Impressionists gathered — the ‘Batignolles group’ around Manet. Bazille painted the room and its regular visitors as a record of that circle; Manet, dropping by, reportedly added the figure of Bazille himself. Within a year Bazille had enlisted; he died at Beaune-la-Rolande in November 1870.
Where was Bazille's Studio painted?
Scholarship The studio was on an upper floor of 9 rue de la Condamine, in the seventeenth arrondissement of Paris, in the Batignolles — then a modest quarter favoured by artists. The street and the building line survive, but the studio interior itself is long gone, converted like most such rooms; the picture is the record of it. The canvases on the walls are identifiable works by Bazille, Monet and Renoir.
What is in the painting?
A tall, pink-walled room hung densely with framed pictures. At the centre, an easel with a large canvas; two men — Manet in a hat, Monet behind him — consider it, while the lanky Bazille stands beside them holding his palette. On the right, a staircase: Renoir seated on the lower steps talking to a standing man, Zola above them leaning on the rail. At the left, Edmond Maître plays an upright piano; a green sofa and a still-life of fruit are in the foreground.
Look closely
The easel group
Manet and Monet study a canvas on the easel while the tall Bazille stands by with his palette.
Renoir and Zola on the stairs
Renoir sits on the lower steps; the writer Zola leans over the rail above.
The piano
Edmond Maître, a musician friend of the group, plays an upright piano at the left.
The picture-hung walls
Framed canvases cover the walls frame to frame — identifiable works by Bazille, Monet and Renoir.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A deep studio interior organised around the central easel group, with the picture-hung walls as a frame.
Scholarship Bazille uses the height of the room and the diagonal of the staircase to spread the figures at different levels, all loosely turned towards the easel. The many framed canvases on the walls flatten the background into a grid; the light is clear north-studio light.
History & provenance
The painting passed to Bazille's family after his death and, with other works, to the French state; it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Sources
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris — collection entry for Frédéric Bazille, ‘L'Atelier de la rue de la Condamine’ (1870; oil on canvas, c. 98 × 128 cm)
- Musée Fabre, Montpellier / National Gallery of Art, Washington — ‘Frédéric Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism’ (2016)
Related paintings
More by Frédéric Bazille
Réunion de famille
