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ÉTIENNE MOREAU-NELATON , PARIS, 1859 - PARIS, 1927 L'Omnibus Oil on canvas 62.9 x 80 cm From the top of her promontory, this elegant woman facing us adopts a perfectly symmetrical pose, with her outstretched arms resting on her horizontally placed umbrella. Seated on the bench of the upper platform of an omnibus 'à l'impériale', she occupies, static, the centre of the canvas. She is surrounded by two men, seated on the other side of the bench, offering the light touch of her jacket between their two black clothes. These gentlemen turn to converse with the lady. Relegated to the left, two other men, one in a light jacket, the other in a dark suit, also occupy the same bench. These silhouettes, with their various hats, stand out against the rosy glow of the sky in the background. The alternating shades of their clothes blend into the urban landscape, at the level of the houses on either side of the composition that form the two sides of the street. The tight framing of the scene, which reveals the influence of photography, gives a certain intimacy to this conversation, whose location on the upper platform of a bus is understood thanks to a few clues. The clear pattern of the guardrail bends to the right, suggesting the bus's staircase; a sign mentions 'Ternes', revealing its destination, while underneath, the inscriptions 'St Honoré - 33' inform us of the line it takes. However, the point of view chosen by the painter places us at the same height as the characters, as if we were on the platform of another omnibus. This painting, through its framing, photographic, its palette, restricted, and its subject, contemporary, is imbued with the avant-garde pictorial research carried out by the painters Degas or Manet, whom Moreau-Nélaton also collects. Etienne Moreau-Nélaton (1859-1927) was a French artist - painter, engraver and ceramist - but also an art historian and, finally, an immense art collector who bequeathed some one hundred paintings to the Louvre; he is thus one of the largest private donors to the French state. In the course of three donations, forty paintings by Corot were acquired by the Louvre, as well as many avant-garde works such as Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet and Les Coquelicots by Claude Monet, now in the Musée d'Orsay. Finally, he was the author of the most important monographs of his time, devoted to Delacroix, Corot, Manet and Millet. Son of the painter and ceramist Camille Moreau-Nélaton, Etienne owes his vocation as an artist to her. He began by training with the landscape artist Henri Harpignies and then with the painter and decorator Albert Maignan. This Omnibus is one of the rare works that have come down to us and offers an enlightening testimony to Moreau-Nélaton's passion for this realist painting that he loved so much that he bequeathed it to the Louvre Museum. One thinks of Manet's Balcony, where the figures stand behind the openwork railing of a balcony, or the urban subjects of Degas or Caillebotte, whose elaborate angles of view seek to capture the modernity of his time. Provenance: Sotheby's sale, New York, 24 May 1995, lot 00256. Signatur: Signed lower left