Famous French Paintings: 9 Masterpieces and the Stories Behind Them

The most famous French paintings are Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Monet's Impression, Sunrise and Seurat's La Grande Jatte. Nine of them are below, in the order French painting changed: from revolution and shipwreck to picnics, dance halls and Sunday parks. They sit among the world's best-loved famous paintings, and almost all hang in Paris or Chicago.

Each entry gives the date, the size, where you can see it, and the one fact that makes the picture more than a postcard. If you are comparing countries, the same treatment is here for famous Italian paintings and famous Spanish paintings.

At a glance

Revolution and scandal: 1814 to 1830

01Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix (1830)

Delacroix finished his barricade scene in the autumn of 1830. On October 21 he wrote to his brother: "I've embarked on a modern subject, a barricade. And if I haven't fought for my country at least I'll paint for her." The subject is the July Revolution that toppled Charles X, not the revolution of 1789, a mix-up people still make.

“And if I haven't fought for my country at least I'll paint for her.”

The French government bought it in 1831 for 3,000 francs, then pulled it from display at the Palais du Luxembourg within months because its message was too inflammatory. After the June Rebellion of 1832 it went back to the artist, and the Louvre acquired it in 1874, where it hangs today. Look for the Phrygian cap on Liberty's head, the tricolor in her hand, and a tiny second flag on the towers of Notre-Dame. Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty is said to have been inspired by this picture, per the painting's history.

02The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault (1818 to 1819)

The frigate Méduse ran aground on July 2, 1816. A raft was set adrift on July 5 with at least 150 people on it, and it was found on July 17. Only 15 were still alive. Géricault interviewed two survivors, built a scale model of the raft with the help of survivors, including a carpenter, visited hospitals and morgues to study the flesh of the dying and dead, and, with his head shaved, lived like a monk in his studio for months.

The finished canvas measures 491 by 716 centimeters (about 16 by 23.5 feet) and drew strong praise and strong attacks at the Salon of 1819. After Géricault died at 32, the Louvre's director bought it at the sale held in 1824, per the museum's own record. It is the picture that turned a government scandal into a Romantic icon.

03La Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1814)

Napoleon's sister Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, commissioned this reclining nude. A critic who saw it at the Salon of 1819 said it had "neither bones nor muscle, neither blood, nor life, nor relief." One later study counted five vertebrae too many, and the left arm is shorter than the right. Recent studies suggest the distortions were chosen, not mistakes.

It measures 91 by 162 centimeters, and the Louvre bought it in 1899, per the museum's record. The pose comes from David's portrait of Madame Récamier, and the stretched body echoes Parmigianino. Read it as a drawing exercise in oil: line first, anatomy second.

Realism and the Salon des Refusés: 1857 to 1863

04The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet (1857)

Hand-painted in oil · From $350See sizes ›

Three peasant women pick up stray wheat stalks after the harvest. That was the entire subject, painted at 83.5 by 110 centimeters, a size usually kept for religious or mythological scenes. At the Salon of 1857 some critics hated it: one saw "the scaffolds of 1793" in it, and another complained of the women's "ugliness and their grossness."

Millet sold it for 3,000 francs, less than his 4,000 asking price. In 1889 it brought 300,000 francs at auction, and Champagne maker Jeanne-Alexandrine Louise Pommery ended up with it. She gave it to the French state, a donation accepted in 1890 according to the Musée d'Orsay record. It went to the Louvre first and now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay. You can have a hand-painted copy of The Gleaners in any of seven sizes.

05Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Édouard Manet (1862 to 1863)

Hand-painted in oil · From $350See sizes ›

The Salon jury rejected Manet's picnic in 1863, and he showed it in that year's Salon des Refusés under its first title, Le Bain. The offense was not simply the nude: painters had long shown nudes, usually as goddesses or nymphs. Here she is a contemporary woman, thought to be Victorine Meurent, sitting with men in modern clothes.

Manet borrowed the grouping from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after Raphael's Judgement of Paris, and scholars also cite Giorgione and Titian. The canvas is 207 by 265 centimeters and hangs at the Musée d'Orsay. Manet kept it until 1878, when singer Jean-Baptiste Faure bought it for 2,600 francs, per its provenance record; the Orsay lists the same 1878 date and the 207 by 265 size.

Impressionism: 1872 to 1876

06Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet (1872)

Hand-painted in oil · From $350See sizes ›

Monet painted the harbor of his hometown, Le Havre, on a small canvas, 50 by 65 centimeters, per the Marmottan. It went on view in April 1874 at the first independent exhibition, held in photographer Nadar's former Paris studio. On April 25, critic Louis Leroy mocked the show in Le Charivari, and his sneer gave the movement its name.

The painting lives at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris. Thieves took it in 1985; it was recovered and returned in 1990 and went back on display in 1991.

07Bal du moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)

Hand-painted in oil · From $350See sizes ›

Renoir rented a studio near the mill in Montmartre and painted this Sunday dance. His friend Georges Rivière recalled that he worked on the spot, fighting the wind that threatened to carry the canvas away, though it is unclear which of the two versions that was. The one in the Musée d'Orsay is 131.5 by 176.5 centimeters. Gustave Caillebotte owned it from 1879 until his death in 1894, then it passed to the French state.

Renoir painted a second, smaller version of 78 by 114 centimeters. On May 17, 1990 it sold at Sotheby's in New York for $78 million. Both pictures show the same thing: friends in striped dresses, lamplight and shadow, and a crowd that seems to keep dancing past the edge of the canvas.

Beyond Impressionism: 1884 to 1895

08A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat (1884 to 1886)

Hand-painted in oil · From $350See sizes ›

Seurat worked on his riverside park from May 1884 to March 1885, then again from October 1885 to May 1886, making many drawings and oil sketches first. He built the surface from small dots of pure color, which the eye blends from a distance. It measures 207.5 by 308.1 centimeters.

It was shown at the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in May 1886. Collectors Frederic and Helen Birch Bartlett bought it in 1924 and gave it to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1926, where it still hangs, per the museum's record. It also inspired Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George.

09The Card Players, Paul Cézanne (1890 to 1895)

Cézanne painted five versions of men playing cards, with two to five players, using local farmhands from Provence, some of whom worked on the family estate at Jas de Bouffan. The Musée d'Orsay version (about 1890 to 1895) is small, 47.5 by 57 centimeters. The largest, 134.6 by 180.3 centimeters with five figures, is at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

In 2011 the Qatari royal family bought a two-player version from the collection of shipping magnate George Embiricos. The price was never officially published; Vanity Fair reported estimates between $250 million and $320 million, and most outlets repeated about $250 million, per Hyperallergic. Look at how the players hardly move: Cézanne replaced drama with weight and silence.

How to see them

Paris holds most of this list. The Louvre has the Delacroix, Géricault and Ingres. The Musée d'Orsay has the Millet, Manet, Renoir and one Cézanne. The Marmottan has the Monet. For Seurat, you need Chicago.

A few of them on your wall

Several of these French pictures, from the Delacroix barricade to Monet's harbor, are available at Art & See as oil paintings made by hand on canvas, in seven sizes with custom sizes on request. Browse the full collection of famous paintings and pick the one you would walk back to twice. A photo of your finished canvas is sent for your approval before it ships, shipping is free worldwide and returns are open for 90 days.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Liberty Leading the People
• Wikipedia, The Raft of the Medusa
• Wikipedia, La Grande Odalisque
• Wikipedia, The Gleaners
• Wikipedia, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
• Wikipedia, Impression, Sunrise
• Wikipedia, Bal du moulin de la Galette
• Wikipedia, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
• Wikipedia, The Card Players
• Louvre, Le radeau de la Méduse (collection record)
• Louvre, Une odalisque, dite La grande odalisque (collection record)
• Musée d'Orsay, Des glaneuses (collection record)
• Musée d'Orsay, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
• Musée Marmottan Monet, Impression, soleil levant
• Art Institute of Chicago, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884
• Hyperallergic, Qatar buys The Card Players