Victor Chocquet: Art Collector and Friend of the Impressionists

The Oskar Reinhart Collection «Am Römerholz» in Winterthur is organizing an
exhibition on Victor Chocquet (born 1821 in Lille, died 1891 in Paris), an
admirer of Eugène Delacroix and at the same time one of the first friends,
patrons and collectors of the French Impressionists. His distinguished
collection, which was auctioned in 1899, included large groups of works by
Delacroix, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne, as well as important works by
Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet and Claude Monet.
The theme of our exhibition is closely linked with the Oskar Reinhart Collection. The significant works by
Renoir at Römerholz include one of the most expressive and striking portraits of
Chocquet, painted around 1876 (Dauberville 542). That painting will first be
shown in the context of other portraits of Chocquet and members of his family
painted by Renoir and Cézanne. This part of the exhibition would then be
followed by two important threads that are imperative for the completion of the
portrayal of the collector's life. The portrait section would be accompanied by documents relating to Chocquet's
life. This material should not only fulfill the customary need for key data
about the career of the exhibition protagonist, but should above all outline the
character of this early connoisseur of modern art and the new type of collector
he represented.

The collection of Victor Chocquet is to be fully
reconstructed for the first time in the catalogue. The exhibition itself will
bring together an important selection of Chocquet's vast collection. Our aim
here is to concentrate on key works that attest first and foremost to Chocquet's
relationship with the artists whose works he collected, and the significance of
his activities for the breakthrough of Impressionism.