Woman on a Black Divan, Jean-Jacques Henner (1869)
Most of the internationally famous names (Courbet, Brueghel the Younger) hanging here have one or two lesser works on display. Nothing to get the heart fluttering. The collection’s strength lies in Alsatian artists who are highly regarded, but not household names. The Benner twins (Emmanuel and Jean) feature heavily, but it’s local hero Jean-Jacques Henner who steals the show with the high-impact hanging of “Woman on a Black Divan”. This reclining nude, painted just a few years after Manet’s groundbreaking Olympia, has a nonchalance that at the time stood apart from the conventional romantic or sexualised imagery of nudes. “Come and get me, see if I care”, the painting screams across the gallery, clearly visible from the preceding space.
Other highlights for me: Albert Marquet’s “The Harbour of Rabat”; two paintings by Alessandro La Volpe of ancient Rome that had a Hopperesque quality to their detail and detachment; and the gloriously over-the-top “Samson Breaking his Bonds” by Léon Glaize. The museum also features one of the most artfully placed leaves in art history in Emmanuel Benner’s “Apollo & Daphne”.
If the collection feels a bit jumbled, even given a broad chronological hanging, bear in mind it’s free. Worth the visit just for three or four paintings, but don’t allocate hours of your time. 6/10