Did you know......?
bidask
Posts: 14,017 ✭✭✭✭✭
I manage money. I earn money. I save money .
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
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Thanks for sharing this, from a former student of art history
Highly enthusiastic about world coins, contemporary circulating counterfeits and unusual stuff
There were several prominent numismatists with quite extensive collections of contemporary materials from the Maximillian/ French occupation era. Those gentlemen were in the right place at the right time (late 1950s and early 1960s) and their collections were significant. IIRC, Mr. Don Bailey was one of them.
Manet painted more than one version of this subject:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execution_of_Emperor_Maximilian
Napoleon III sure hung Maximilian out to dry, but Napoleon got his Sedan in 1871.
Nappy Trois got to retire in England and it could have been worse. He did not live long enough to see the death of his only son.
Why was the painting cut up?
Re-use canvas for another (smaller) painting. Frenchmen were once noted for great thriftiness.
Not everything is vendible, and the subject matter was (once) controversial in France.
He painted several of these. However, apparently he did not know that Maximilian was not in the centre but General Miramón. Sad ending to a guy who had great ideas and found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I’m familiar with the work and I’ve seen it in person a few times. I’ve never understood the appeal.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I have also seen one or two of the different versions still extant. I believe that I have seen the cut-up version too.
Manet was both a businessman and a patriotic Frenchman, and he hoped for a market amongst the French (but he was actually forbidden to display the paintings in France). But Mexco was a military misadventure that most French wished to forget about. And then came Sedan...