The Organ Rehearsal

The Organ Rehearsal
The Organ Rehearsal
Artist:Henry Lerolle (French, Paris 1848–1929 Paris)
Date:1885
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:93 1/4 x 142 3/4 in. (236.9 x 362.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of George I. Seney, 1887
Accession Number:87.8.12

This is the most important painting by Lerolle, a friend and collector of such artists as Degas, Denis, and Vuillard. Set in the choir loft of the church of Saint-François-Xavier in Paris, it features members of Lerolle’s intimate circle, including his wife (bare-headed) and her sisters, in fashionable matching hats; his brother-in-law, composer Ernest Chausson, plays the organ. The painter himself gazes outward at left. Shown at the Salon of 1885, this picture triumphed the next year in New York, in the first major Impressionism exhibition in America. One critic recalled, "spectators … spoke low before it, as if waiting for … the voice of the singer to be heard."

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