A Spring Unboxing Video

Spring has sprung, and this year we’re taking a look back at Getty’s biggest Spring, which arrived in November of 2014.

That’s when Getty unboxed a much-anticipated painting: Édouard Manet’s Spring. This unboxing video is one of our favorite ways to bring in the season, and to take a moment to appreciate the importance of this painting on Manet’s career.

A Brief History of Manet’s Spring

Today, the name Édouard Manet has a permanent place in European art history. But, in the 19th century, the name was quite controversial. His work was shunned by the gatekeepers of the Paris Salon, savaged by critics, and once caused art students to come to blows.

That is until this 1881 painting.

To call it a hit was an understatement. “Spring gave Manet one of his rare moments of universal, unadulterated acclaim but would have put the seal on a turning point in his career—no longer a troublesome aspirant but a celebrated arrivé,” Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle said when the painting came to Getty.

It didn’t hurt that Spring captured the height of Paris fashion (read more about how Manet picked out the outfit himself), worn by a world-famous model that one reviewer called “the Kendall Jenner of the Belle Epoque.”

It was a work of art that was sure to launch Manet’s career. Tragically, he died of syphilis just a year later. Spring went into private hands and out of public view until Getty acquired it in November 2014.

Now, one of Manet’s most significant works of art is available for the world to see. Visit it in person at the Getty Center, use augmented reality to project it right in front of you, or download it for free and add it to your own private collection.

Happy spring!