The patrons of the Reichshoffen café in Montmartre have rarely been able to sup together in the 145 years since Édouard Manet painted them into art history, reports The Times.
But now the Parisian drinkers are set to be reunited for only the second time in history — and the first in Britain — when the two halves of one canvas are brought together by the National Gallery.
It is not known why Manet chose to separate his original painting. One part ended up at the National Gallery in London and the other in the Oskar Reinhart Collection in Switzerland, which was forbidden by its benefactor from lending any of its paintings.
In 2005 the London institution agreed to lend its half, Coin de café concert, to Switzerland where for the first time in 125 years it was displayed next to Au café. Two decades on, the Swiss site is to repay the favour after scrapping the ban on loans.
“This is not an accident of history,” Christopher Riopelle, the curator of post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, said of the paintings parting ways. “Manet chose to cut them and make two separate compositions. He must have decided that it was not working on this large scale.”
The pieces can be seen in London from May as part of the gallery’s major rehang, CC Land: The Wonder of Art. Riopelle said they would be displayed “quite close together” but as independent pictures, adding: “We have to honour [Manet’s] aesthetic decision … many artists’ minds are incomprehensible to the rest of us.”