Bazille, Frédéric (1841-1870)
Thérèse lisant dans le parc de Méric (Thérèse reading in the park of Méric)
1867
Oil on canvas 92 x 59.2 cm
Private collection
The subject of this work was Bazille’s cousin and primary subject for many of his best known canvases, including La Robe rose and his most famous Réunion de famille, both also in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay. The Bazille and des Hours families summered together at the Méric estate, a magnificent homestead in Castelnau-le-Lez near Montpellier. Méric was of central importance to both families, serving not only as their summer residence but also a source of income, given the thirty acres of vineyards encompassed within its sweeping grounds. As Gabriel Sarraute once wrote, “Méric for him would always be synonymous with the heavenly long vacations” (Gabriel Sarraute, Rétrospective Bazille, La Peinture de l’été languedocien” in Arts, June 9, 1950, p. 8). It was here that he painted many of his greatest contributions to the historical canon of Impressionism, with its gardens serving as the backdrop for many masterworks including Réunion de famille, which was painted there in the same summer as Thérèse lisant dans le parc de Méric. (Sotheby’s)