22 March - 18 May 2014

A much loved work from the National Gallery Collection - Edouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian came to The Bowes Museum as the first painting in the three-year Masterpiece Tour; part of the National Gallery’s commitment to promote the understanding, knowledge and appreciation of Old Master paintings to as wide an audience as possible, with this opportunity receiving support from Christie’s. 

The painting – the first to travel on the tour - depicts the fatal moment when Ferdinand Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was captured by Benito Juárez’s Mexican forces and executed alongside two of his generals – Mejía and Miramón – in 1867. 

The left hand section was most likely cut off by Manet himself, but after his death the canvas was cut into smaller fragments, some of which were sold separately. The artist Edgar Degas, appreciating the great importance of the work eventually purchased all of the surviving fragments and reassembled them on a single canvas, which has been part of the National Gallery Collection since 1918. 

It was displayed alongside Jules de Vignon’s Portrait of Emperor Napoleon III after Winterhalter, dated 1867, The Emperor Napoleon III Reviewing Troops on the Champs Elysées, Paris by H. J. C and clothes that belonged to the Empress Eugenie. 

Portrait of Emperor Napoleon III after Winterhalter, 1867

Together with contemporary magazines and journals, these works introduced you to the Second Empire and the political developments which preceded Maximilian’s execution.