Artistic affinities and collections

Under the Third Republic, art took on the specific role of contributing to the progress of humanity: a visit to an art gallery should enable people to discover beauty, extend their knowledge and reach a superior reality.

This belief, which characterised the period, accorded artists a social role, which was embodied perfectly by Jules Adler and Pierre-Victor Galland. According to Henry Havard, Pierre-Victor Galland was the archetypal artist who combined technical virtuosity and teaching skills. Fuelled by his knowledge of the Old Masters, Galland produced his art for his contemporaries, particularly industrialists and artisans.

An Inspector of Fine Arts, and a collector and promoter of the decorative arts, Henry Havard specialised in 17th-century Dutch art, which he discovered in 1871 during his exile in the Netherlands. It was during this period that he met and became friends with Claude Monet. Although he worked as a correspondent for a large number of newspapers such as Le Temps, Le Siècle and La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, he still maintained links with the Saône-et-Loire (the department where he was born) and was one of the museum's main donors. Another influential art critic, Louis Vauxcelles (born Louis Mayer) is portrayed here in a sober manner by his uncle and art teacher Adolphe Déchenaud.

A winner of the Prix de Rome in 1894, Déchenaud was a member of the Society of French Artists, as was Jules Adler whom he depicts with his friend Ernest Quost, who similarly loved city life in Paris. Accustomed to painting artists in their studios, Adolphe Déchenaud opted for a sombre palette reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch art.