Impressionism, Inc.: An Examination of the Impressionists’ Société Anonyme

The intersection of art history and economics in a college independent study thesis

One of the main reasons I went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for college is that it offered the best opportunity to combine economics and humanities education in an integrated way (I think I wrote in my application essay that I wanted to both read Shakespeare and learn the Black-Scholes model). So, in the fall of 2009, while I was taking business classes on marketing and accounting, I also took a class called Impressionism, European Art, 1860-1900 with Professor André Dombrowski in the Art History department.

While writing my final paper for that course, I discovered something that a lot of art historians surprisingly seemed to be overlooking. In 1874, a group of artists now associated with Impressionism held an exhibition and chose the name "Société Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc" for themselves. A lot of art historians were misleadingly translating this name as “Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc” (in fact, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s main essay online on Impressionism still does so). But I had learned in some economic history readings that “société anonyme” was not an “anonymous society” but rather a term that referred to a type of limited liability joint-stock company.

I emailed a few experts on French economic history to confirm my suspicions, and Colin Heywood (Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham) kindly responded: “Yes, you are right, the existing translations would miss something. S.A. at the end of a French company's name would be the equivalent of ltd. in England or, I think, inc. in the US. In other words, a Société Anonyme is a limited liability shareholding company. They were starting to become more common in business in the late nineteenth century in France.”

Excited by this discovery (who knew that the Impressionists were such savvy businessmen?) and the chance to combine my interests in art history and economics, I proposed to Professor Dombrowski that I spend a semester writing an independent study thesis on this topic and requested that he serve as my advisor. He agreed (“the issues you raise are very close to what interests me in Impressionism,” he said), and I got to work in the fall of 2010.

In the thirteen years since I finished that thesis, I didn’t think much of it. In 2018, I visited Paris for the first time and saw Édouard Manet’s Olympia in person at the Musée d'Orsay. I remembered Professor Dombrowski then — how passionately he’d lectured on this painting and how much of his appreciation for it he’d passed on to me.

Last week, I came across a book that Professor Dombrowski had edited in 2021 called A Companion to Impressionism, billed as “the 21st century's first major academic reassessment of Impressionism, providing a new generation of scholars with a comprehensive view of critical conversations.” In it, he wrote an essay titled “Incorporating Impressionism: The Société anonyme and the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874.” To my complete shock, I discovered in an online preview of the book that he thanked me and my independent study thesis in his acknowledgements after the essay. I was shocked and flattered that he even remembered my work, let alone was inspired by it to continue researching and writing on the topic.

It was also really cool to see my paper cited in a legitimate academic setting:

The paperback version of A Companion to Impressionism will be released in March, and I’ve preordered a copy. I’m looking forward to reading Professor Dombrowski’s essay on the Impressionists and their société anonyme and learning more from him. I’ve pasted my 2010 independent study thesis below, in case anyone is curious and wants to read it.

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Impressionism, Inc.

An Examination of the Impressionists’ Société Anonyme

Prameet Kumar

            In the May 5, 1873 issue of the newspaper L’Avenir national, author Paul Alexis encouraged the formation of an “artistic corporation” independent of the official Académie des Beaux-Arts. “This powerful idea, this idea of association is growing, and it is injecting new blood into the anemic old world,” he wrote.[1] “Like any other corporation, the artistic corporation has much to gain by organizing immediately its own syndicate.”[2] Claude Monet, who had long grown frustrated with the conservative leanings of the Académie and the exclusivity of its Salon exhibitions, wrote back almost immediately. Alexis published Monet’s reply one week later: “A group of painters assembled in my home read with pleasure the article you published in L’Avenir national. We are all very pleased to see you defend ideas which are also ours, and we hope that, as you say, L’Avenir national will kindly lend us its support when the Society we are in the process of forming is finally established.”[3]

            In his article, Alexis had called for the establishment of a chambre syndicale, or trade union.[4] But Camille Pissarro led the charge in convincing his colleagues to establish a jointly owned commercial enterprise instead. He wrote the founding charter himself, basing it on that of a bakers’ union in Pontoise. The group was formally incorporated on December 27, 1873, under the name Société anonyme coopérative à capital variable d’artistes-peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. The words “société anonyme” did not signify the artists’ desire for anonymity; instead, they were a financial term recognizing the organization as a limited-liability joint-stock company. By the time the Impressionists banded together, the société anonyme was the preferred form of business organization, but it had taken a long and convoluted road to prominence. It grew in popularity only after restrictions on its use were abandoned in 1867. The Impressionists’ société anonyme lasted for less than a year, but it provided the commercial structure that enabled these artists to unite for the very first time.

            The  société anonyme was the logical form of business organization for the Impressionists. Short on personal wealth, the artists could not afford a company that would hold them liable for any losses their business incurred. And of all the types of organization that would afford limited liability, only the société anonyme would allow them to retain control of the management of the business as well. In creating the group, the artists were seeking security and independence; they needed to insulate themselves as much as possible in the case of financial failure, and they needed to preserve their independence from external control. They found what they were seeking in the société anonyme.

The History of French Business Organization

Corporate enterprise in France developed through three distinct phases. In the first phase, the mercantilist economic philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sought to increase the nation’s wealth by regulating all of its commercial activities; the state itself actively supported and sponsored trading and manufacturing joint-stock companies by bestowing upon them certain exclusive rights. The second phase, taking place in the late eighteenth century, saw the decline of these privileges, but the government maintained its authority over the establishment of businesses. In the third phase — with which we are concerned — state control of business formation came under fire, and the limited-liability corporation known as the société anonyme rose to prominence. This development occurred in a span of roughly 60 years in the nineteenth century, from the promulgation of the Code de commerce of 1807 to the granting of free incorporation in 1867.[5]

The Code de commerce had its roots in l’Ordonnance pour le Commerce of 1673, designed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Controller-General of Finances under Louis XIV. Among other provisions, the ordinance lay out and sanctioned the most common forms of business organization at the time.[6] It recognized two specific types of businesses: the société en nom collectif and the société en commandite. Written in vague terms, it neither referred to these organizations by name nor defined their structures, but other contemporary sources provide these details. The société en nom collectif can be described simply as a partnership with unlimited liability. (Unlimited liability is the concept that the owners of a business are personally responsible for the repayment of all debts incurred by its operation.) The société en commandite was a partnership in which some participants were subject to unlimited liability and others enjoyed limited liability. (Under limited liability, investors are obligated to pay no more than the initial capital they devoted to the firm.) In the société en commandite, active partners known as gérants (who, like the partners of a société en nom collectif, had unlimited liability) managed the firm; other partners known as commanditaires (who had limited liability) only provided capital. For most investors, limited liability was preferred to unlimited liability, as it absolved the owners of personal financial responsibility in case the business went bankrupt.[7]

The Establishment of a Société Anonyme

The 1807 Code de commerce, one of the five major codes of the Napoleonic period, explicitly defined the two forms of business organization mentioned in l’Ordonnance pour le Commerce and also included a third form that was gaining popularity in the business world of France: the société anonyme. The société anonyme was a type of business organization that is most similar to the corporations with which we are familiar today. It is defined in Articles 29-37 of the Code de commerce:[8]

29. The société anonyme does not exist under a nom social; it is not designated by the name of any of its members.

30. It is described by the designation of the object of its enterprise.

31. It is administered by temporary officers (mandataires) subject to recall [who are either] members or non-members, [either] salaried or without compensation.

32. The administrators are responsible only for the carrying out of order[s] which they have received. They do not contract, by reason of their management, any obligation [either] personal or joint for the engagements of the société.

33. The members are not liable except for the loss of the amount of their interest in the société.

34. The capital of a société anonyme is divided into shares and even into fractions of a share of equal value.

35. A share can be made in the form of a security [payable] to bearer. In this case transfer is effected by the handing over of the security.

36. The ownership of shares can be established by an inscription on the registers of the société. In this case transfer is effected by a declaration of transfer inscribed on the registers, and signed by him who makes the transfer or by one vested with power [i.e., of attorney].

37. The société anonyme cannot exist except by the authorization of the Government, and with its approval of the instrument which establishes it; this approval should be given in the form prescribed for regulations of public administration.

To better understand the provisions stated in the Code de commerce, let us discuss them by examining the charter of the Impressionists’ société anonyme. The Impressionists were not unlike other small entrepreneurs at the time. Though radical in their art, they remained conservative in their commerce. In his famous essay “French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the Nineteenth Century,” economist and historian David Landes summarized three characteristics of the average French businessman. The businessman acted on behalf of himself or a small group of partners; he was fundamentally conservative in his business decisions; and he worked independently and self-sufficiently.[9] All three of these characteristics were true of the Impressionists, who had formed the société anonyme to profit financially as much as they had to counter the Salon. They acted cautiously, as they were working with their own money and not someone else’s — a judiciousness that is evident in their organization’s charter. The charter of the Impressionists’ société anonyme was printed in several journals in 1874, including La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité:[10]

Société anonyme coopérative d’artistes-peintres, sculpteurs, etc. à Paris

A société anonyme, formed by a group of artists, has been established in Paris. We are announcing the articles of association; we hasten to publish them, praising the artists for their initiative and wishing for the prosperity of their work:

A société anonyme coopérative, with variable personnel and capital, has formed between painters, sculptors, engravers and lithographers, for a period of ten years, starting last December 27, with the object of: 1)  the organization of free exhibitions, without a jury or honorary awards, where each partner can exhibit exhibit his or her works; 2) the sale of said works; 3) the publication, as soon as possible, of a journal relating exclusively to the arts.

The company headquarters is in Paris, provisionally at treasurer M. A. Ottin’s address, no. 9, rue Vincent-Compoint.

The company’s funds, which can be increased, either by the addition of new  members who must take out at least one share of 60 francs payable in twelve installments, or by any donation that can be made to the company, are set at 1,200 francs. Each partner will have to pay further, each month, the sum of 5 francs to the society’s funds; he or she will be given one share every time the payments reach 60 francs. The share cannot be given to another partner without the authorization of the board of directors.

Until the day of the first general meeting, the société  is to be provisionally administered by MM. Pissarro, Mettling, Rouart, Feyen-Perrin, Meyer, de Molins, Monet, painters.

The supervising provisional council shall consist of MM.: Béliard, painter; Ottin, sculptor, Renoir, painter.

As a result of these appointments, and following the payment of one-twelfth of shares, the société is decidedly incorporated.

The income of the company consists of: 1) entrance fees to exhibitions; 2) levies on sales; 3) and any other receipts. This income, after the deduction of expenses, will be shared between the partners in proportion to their stakes.

            The charter of the Impressionists’ société anonyme followed most of the provisions set forth more than half a century ago in the 1807 Code de commerce. Many mainstream publications today mistranslate société anonyme as literally meaning “anonymous society,” but the Impressionists did not operate incognito.[11] Indeed, the publication of the presiding members’ names in the charter shows that they had no intention of keeping their identities concealed. They were rather proud of their undertaking and wished to use it as an opportunity to increase their recognition in the art world. The word anonyme instead referred to the operation of the organization under a nom social (Articles 29). That the business was managed under a collective name and not under the name of any or all of its constituent members is tied to the limited liability that the société anonyme provided to all of its members (Article 33). In contrast to the société en commandite, the société anonyme ensured that even the members who managed the business would not be liable for more than they invested in the enterprise (Article 32). This provision was undoubtedly appealing to the cash-strapped Impressionists, who personally financed their business and could not afford to assume financial responsibility for much more than the modest 1,200 francs they initially invested. (To put this sum in perspective, it was only slightly more than the average annual salary of a doctor or lawyer in France.[12]) This sum was divided into shares of 60 francs each that could be transferred from one member to another, and new members could receive a share by investing 60 francs of their own (Article 34). As we will discover, Article 37 was overturned six years before the Impressionists formed their société anonyme, so they were free to incorporate without seeking the consent of the government.

A Suitable Substitute for the Société Anonyme

            Because the société anonyme was granted the privilege of limited liability for all of its members, the Code required that such an organization could only be formed with the explicit authorization of the state, a regulation that remained intact until 1867. The process to gain this authorization was very long and difficult. Requests for authorization had to include countless documents: “a description of the object of the enterprise, the period of its duration, the names and addresses of the stockholders, the capital of the enterprise, the dates by which the capital was to be paid up, the seat of the enterprise, the mode of its administration, and its draft charter.” The Conseil d'Etat, the government administration tasked with approving sociétés anonymes, was very strict in making its decisions. It factored many aspects into its verdict, determining whether the enterprise in which the firm wanted to be involved would be beneficial to the country, if the individuals involved in the business were upstanding citizens, and whether there was a high likelihood of success in the venture. The charters of the sociétés anonymes that were granted the right to incorporate were then required to publish their highly detailed charters for the public to view.[13] Because of the difficulties in securing the authorization required for incorporation, very few sociétés anonymes were established after the passage of the Code. The Conseil believed that the utmost caution should be taken in bestowing the power of limited liability to a firm; it had intended the société anonyme to be used for large-scale enterprises.

In stark contrast to the difficulty in incorporating a société anonyme was the ease with which people could incorporate a société en commandite. Those people whose requests for authorization of a société anonyme were denied by the Conseil found a suitable substitute in the société en commandite. The 1807 Code de commerce divided the société en commandite into two categories: the société en commandite simple and the société en commandite par actions. The latter was allowed to issue shares of stock, making it very similar to the société anonyme. And because most of the people who invested in the société en commandite par actions served as commanditaires and not gérants, they were able to enjoy the same limited liability that investors in the société anonyme did. But the gérant was not deprived of benefits either; because he accepted the risk of unlimited liability, he enjoyed complete omnipotence to run the firm.[14] It took a few decades for the concept of the commandite par actions to catch on among French businessmen, but it was soon prevalent in all types of industry, large and small.

The reign of Louis Philippe — lasting from 1830 to 1848 and known as the July Monarchy — marked the success of the capitalist middle class known as the bourgeoisie. During this time, members of the bourgeoisie increasingly asserted that the authorization to form a société anonyme could only be received by members of the aristocratic upper class who were friends with the administration. Indeed, the great majority of applications to form sociétés anonymes were rejected, and the ones that were allowed to incorporate were genereally owned by prominent figures of the business class, civil service, and the nobility.[15] But despite the fact that it was largely unable to establish sociétés anonymes, the middle class did not harbor strong sentiments in favor of calling for free incorporation, as the alternative of the société en commandite par actions kept it placated.

But because of the ease of forming a société en commandite par actions, many such firms were rife with corruption and dishonesty. As early as 1838, Minister of Justice Félix Barthe said of the rampant abuses. “We have witnessed speculators organizing an enterprise whose ineffectiveness was soon demonstrated, soliciting capital subscriptions on the basis of chimerical assets, placing in charge of the enterprise an insolvent director, detaching themselves from the risk of inevitable catastrophe, and realizing enormous profits by the sale of their contribution for the overvalued assets. In the end, gullible shareholders are left with valueless paper in return for the money they have paid in.”[16] Speculation in commandites and fraud by the powerful gérants led to several economic declines and financial crises. To combat this corruption, the government adopted new legislation in July of 1856 that made the incorporation of commandites par actions much more difficult and expensive, arguing for the law in rhetoric similar to the words of Barthe decades ago. The number of commandites immediately plummeted.[17]

Charles Coquelin and Free Incorporation

Now unable to easily establish commandites, businessmen began to demand free incorporation in earnest. A few calls for free incorporation had been made before; perhaps the earliest ones came from the economist Charles Coquelin. An intellectual successor to the liberal ideas of  Jean-Baptiste Say and contemporary of Frédéric Bastiat, Coquelin championed the cause of free trade. With his Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, he popularized economics for the general French public. Coquelin extolled the benefits of  sociétés anonymes in an 1843 article published in the Revue des deux mondes, in which he also compared laws in France unfavorably to those in England. “In England, a company is formed and incorporated as soon as the contracting parties agree. Their mutual consent, however it is expressed, is sufficient,” he wrote. “English law gives the companies all the freedom, all the possible facilities in their launch and in their operation, while French law binds them through the countless formalities, or suffocates them under the weight of restrictions.”[18] This article had such a profound effect on the economic thought of the time that even the great British philosopher John Stuart Mill said of it, “This topic is well treated in an able paper by M. Coquelin.”[19]

More people began to express the need for free incorporation in the the following decades, particularly after France entered into a number of commercial treaties with foreign nations in the 1860s. In 1860, France signed a treaty with England that drastically lowered French customs barriers and removed all bans on imports of manufactured goods. The years that followed saw many similar treaties: with Belgium in 1861; with Prussia in 1862; with Italy in 1863; with Switzerland in 1864; with Sweden, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands in 1865; with Austria in 1866; and with Portugal and the Papal States in 1867.[20] The treaties with England and Belgium in particular — nations that had much looser rules for incorporation than those of France — proved to be a catalyst in France’s own move toward free incorporation. In 1863, the government sought to appease businessmen and authorized a form of business organization known as the société à responsabilité limitée, which was identical to the société anonyme for all intents and purposes, except that its capital could not exceed 20 million francs.[21]

In the years that followed, even this last restriction was attacked and finally removed. In 1867, the Journal des économistes reprinted Coquelin's famous article[22]:

In the société anonyme …, the base of the association may be extended at will, as there is no necessary limit to the amount of capital. It is for this reason that this form is so peculiarly fitted to the enlarged ideas of our times.

The société anonyme restores everything to its right place, establishing order without interfering with right. It leaves to the mass of the shareholders sufficient power – all, in fact, that they could advantageously exercise – that of appointing, directing, and removing the managers... The union of these advantages in the société anonyme would appear to render it the most perfect form of association.

The Impressionists were engaged in nothing if not the “ideas of [their] times.” Immersed in the contemporary world, they made modernity their primary focus. It is fitting, then, that the most contemporary of the forms of business organization was the one that they chose. Free incorporation was finally granted to the société anonyme in Article 21 of the 1867 Loi sur les sociétés, which simply stated, “In the future, sociétés anonymes can be formed without government permission ... They will be subject to the provisions of Articles 29, 30, 32, 33, 34 and 36 of the Code de commerce and the provisions contained in this title.”[23]

            There were a few dissenting voices at the time that this law was passed. In their “Commantaire de la Loi Sur les sociétés,” Auguste Mathieu and Auguste Bourguignat lamented the prominence of the société anonyme and the decline of the société en commandite: “The société anonyme, more than any other, is a serious derogation from the rules of common law. It  does not have at its head, as the société en commandite, a manager with unlimited liability.”[24] But it was too late; the société anonyme had won out, much to the delight of businessmen throughout France. Entrepreneurs, including the Impressionists, were now free to form corporations with limited liability.

The Incorporation of the Impressionists

            Incidentally, the year that the Loi sur les sociétés was ratified was the very year that the Impressionists first began to consider joining together. Being well-read and engaged in art commerce themselves, the artists were undoubtedly aware of the changes going on in the business world. Pissarro especially was experienced in commercial activity. Since 1860, he had been involved in the Association des artistes-peintres d’histoire et de genre, sculpteurs, graveurs, architectes et dessinateurs, a group founded in 1844 to provide financial assistance and old-age pensions to needy members from a treasury maintained by annual dues.[25] But the primary impetus for association came not from changes in the business world, but from the Impressionists’ rejection from the Academie’s Salon. Monet, Pissarro, Frédéric Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne were all refused from the Salon of 1867. Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot had elected not to enter any paintings. Only Edgar Degas had been accepted.[26] Following his rejection, Bazille wrote to his family in May 1867, expressing his desire to form a group with other artists:[27]

I have bad news to tell you; my paintings were rejected for the exhibition... In any case the annoyance I suffered this year won’t happen again, for I will no longer send anything to the jury. It’s much too ridiculous, when one knows one isn’t a fool, to be exposed to these administrative whims, above all when one doesn’t care about medals and prizegiving. As for what I’m telling you, a dozen talented young people think the same way as I do about it. We have therefore resolved to rent a big studio each year when we will show as many of our paintings as we want. We will invite the painters whom we like to send paintings. Courbet, Corot, Diaz, Daubigny, and many others with whom perhaps you are not familiar, have promised to send paintings, and highly approve of our idea. With the latter, and Monet who is better than all of us, we are sure to succeed.

But this letter was soon followed by another one, telling his family of the abandonment of this idea:[28]

I spoke to you of the plan some young people had of making a separate exhibition. Bleeding ourselves as much as possible, we were able to collect the sum of 2,500 francs, which is not sufficient. We are therefore obliged to give up what we wanted to do.

Unable to raise the necessary funds, the group reluctantly shelved its idea for some time. Anyhow, the revolutionary spirit behind the desire to form the group was somewhat lessened the following year, when Bazille, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, and Degas were all accepted into the Salon. Over the next several years, the violence of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1871, delayed the implementation of the idea even further. Bazille joined the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War, and died in a failed attack in the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande in late November of 1870, along with many others in his regiment.[29] He would not survive to see his dream of an independent artists’ exhibition fulfilled.

            Even though the Impressionists were delayed in their attempts to unite, they had not stopped trying to do so. Well before Alexis published his article in L’Avenir national, Monet and Pissarro had been working to organize a group of artists to oppose the Salon. In late 1872, landscapist Ludovic Piette wrote to Pissarro, “If a certain nucleus of painters plans not to exhibit at all in the Salon of 1873, above all if Courbet is excluded, and if the jury is still composed of reactionaries or Bonapartists, I also would join with pleasure.” A few months later, in April 1873, Monet wrote to Pissarro, “You will tell me if you have seen Béliard and if we are getting ready to gather together again to bring things to a close.”[30] But it would take until the end of the year to reach the close and finalize the group, with Pissarro leading the helm.

            Pissarro insisted that the artists form a société anonyme rather than any other type of business organization. He and Monet wrote the initial draft at the latter's home in Pontoise. It was very important to them that their group be entirely democratic, as they wanted to eliminate all vestiges of the Salon's favoritism.[31] The sociétés anonyme offered them their best chance to establish a democratic organization, as it did away with the gérants that plagued the sociétés en commandite. Sociétés anonymes had been booming throughout France since the promulgation of the 1867 Loi sur les sociétés. A total of 191 of them were formed in 1868, and 200 were formed in 1869. In Paris alone, 798 sociétés anonymes were formed between 1868 and 1879 — one of which was, of course, established by the Impressionists.[32] Given his involvement in the Association, Pissarro was undoubtedly well-versed in forms of organization. He knew that the société anonyme was an attractive method of incorporation, as it would allow the artists to enjoy the limited liability they needed for financial security. In drawing up the Impressionists’ charter, he added many clauses to the charter of the bakers’ union he used as a model, outlining certain prohibitions and payments. But Renoir, who took a leadership role in the formation and management of the société anonyme, refused these rules and convinced Pissarro to include simply that each member of the group as required to give one-tenth of all income derived from exhibition sales to the organization. Satisfied with the final version of the charter, the artists had it published in several journals early the following year. The founding members of the group included Pissarro; Renoir; Monet; Degas; Sisley; Morisot; Pissarro’s friends Edouard Béliard and Jean-Baptiste Guillaumin, and Degas’ friends Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, Jean-Baptiste-Léopold Levert, and Stanislas-Henri Rouart.[33]

            Having incorporated the société anonyme, the artists’ next task was to recruit others to join and purchase shares of stock. Pissarro immediately attempted to persuade the others to include Cézanne. His colleagues were hesitant at best and hostile at worst. They feared that Cézanne would invite too much unnecessary resistance from a public already much opposed to the Impressionists’ efforts. Degas and Manet were especially opposed, with the latter stating that he would not join the group if Cézanne were included. Monet and Guillaumin, however, sided with Pissarro, and allowed Cézanne to join. Manet remained steadfast following this decision and refused to exhibit with the other artists. He is reported to have said, “I will never commit myself with M. Cézanne.”[34]

The Financial Straits of Edgar Degas

            Perhaps the reason that Degas, unlike Manet, remained in the société anonyme despite his opposition to Cézanne’s inclusion was that he viewed the group as a business venture above anything else. Having already exhibited at the Salon six times before, Degas no longer had a desire for winning the approval of the jury or a Salon medal; he was exhibiting with the Impressionists for mostly financial reasons. He considered the exhibitions that the group would  put on as a chance to achieve greater exposure in the art world, and began to think of hosting one-man shows in the future. He even went so far as to sketch out a solo show of ten dance pictures.[35] When looking for other artists to include in the société anonyme, Degas convinced the others to include well-established artists — including Antoine-Ferdinand Attendu, Louis Debras, and Léon-Auguste Ottin — to lend the group credibility, draw more visitors, and help bear the expenses of exhibiting.[36]

            Degas had a peculiar relationship with corporate enterprise, one that was encapsulated very well in his Intérieur d'un bureau d'acheteurs de coton à La Nouvelle-Orléans, painted in the same year that the société anonyme was established. That year, 1873, also marked the beginning of a worldwide depression, which left Degas’ family in financial ruin. This economic downturn had a direct impact on the Impressionists, as their greatest benefactor, the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, suffered great losses and could no longer continue to support the artists. The Impressionists’ nascent plan to hold a group exhibition was therefore accelerated to provide them with necessary income.[37]

Edgar Degas. Intérieur d'un bureau d'acheteurs de coton à La Nouvelle-Orléans.

Municipal Museum, Pau, France.

            The international depression hit Degas’ family at the time that he was painting Intérieur d'un bureau, which depicts a family firm. Degas’ uncle — Michel Musson — was an owner of Musson, Livaudais, and Prestidge, Cotton Factors and Commission Merchants, located in New Orleans. In the painting, the man seated in the bottom of the canvas examining the quality of the cotton is Musson. John Livaudais is on the right, poring over the accounts. James Prestidge sits high on the stool, conversing with a potential customer. Degas’ brother, René de Gas, is seated in the center, reading the local newspaper, The Times-Picayune.[38]

            On February 18, 1873, Degas wrote from New Orleans to his friend James Tissot in London, describing Intérieur d'un bureau. “In it are about fifteen individuals more or less occupied with a table covered with the precious material, and two men, one half-leaning and the other half-sitting on it; the buyer and the broker are discussing a pattern. A raw picture if ever there were one...”[39] The painting is, indeed, “raw” — in three senses of the word. The first sense is the raw material that is the cotton itself, the object of the figures’ concentration. The second sense is the rawness of Degas’ execution of the painting; he shows the scene as untempered and unrefined, capturing an unexpected impression by depicting the visual field as a complete accident (for example, by cropping Musson’s legs at the bottom of the canvas or by framing the scene to include the empty space of the ceiling at the top). The third sense is the rawness, or hurt, that Degas must have felt as he was painting this scene, knowing that the company had dissolved. Indeed, it is curious that Degas made no mention of the end of the firm he was painting in his letter to Tissot.

            Musson and Degas’ father, Auguste de Gas, had invested heavily in Confederate bonds during the American Civil War (even selling a house owned by Degas to purchase them), a decision that proved to be very costly after the Confederacy was defeated.[40] On February 1, 1873, Musson’s firm was dissolved and liquidated, with Prestidge and some other partners assuming the debts and liabilities of Musson and Livaudais. The announcement was made in the The Times-Picayune (perhaps that is precisely what René is reading). [41] Looking at the painting from this point of view, Musson appears to be a pathetic figure, slumped in his chair and gazing wistfully at the cotton in his hands. Livaudais, too, has his head bowed, as if in shame. At the time, bankruptcy was viewed as a familial disgrace, and it was absolutely imperative to avoid financial failure — “fraud could be forgiven, but not poverty.”[42]

            But poverty did come to Degas. In 1874, his father Auguste  —  a banker  — died and left his firm in ruin. By 1876, Degas and his family were struggling to pay off debts, avert lawsuits, and save the family from disgrace.[43] Assuming responsibility for his family’s debts, he was reduced to begging Durand-Ruel for money in the years to come:[44]

17 July 1883

You would give me great pleasure if you could send me all or part of what I asked you for the other day. I have not yet finished the pastels for which they are payment, and I could not take anything from you without offering something in return. But I am not allowed time to wait, I have a bill to pay tomorrow morning. I hope to send you two pieces in the course of tomorrow.

Updated

Send me a little more money by Prosper [his servant] immediately. I need it for this afternoon...

Updated

On Monday I would be pleased if you could send me 300 francs in the morning. If you could go so far as 400 I would be even more relieved. I have more than 200 francs to pay out immediately.

            Degas, though he was a shrewd and cautious businessman, had never had much financial luck. He had painted Intérieur d'un bureau with a buyer in mind — he would unload the artwork onto a cotton merchant who collected art. In his 1873 letter to Tissot, Degas wrote, “I have attached myself to [this] fairly vigorous picture, which is destined for Agnew (the English picture dealer) and which he should place in Manchester. For if a spinner ever wished to find his painter, he really ought to hit upon me.”[45] With the help of the art dealer William Agnew, Degas targeted the Manchester textile manufacturer William Cottrill as a customer; surely a cotton merchant would buy a painting about the cotton industry. But, adding on to Degas’ financial misfortune, Cottrill refused to buy the painting. It wasn’t sold until much later, when a museum in Pau bought it in 1878 for 2,000 francs.[46]

            But in 1873, as Degas was finishing Intérieur d'un bureau — the scene of a failed commercial enterprise — and the Impressionists were beginning their own venture, he must surely have considered the parallels between that company and his own. About fifteen people were gathered in both the painting of the cotton office and in the founding of the société anonyme. It was possible for them to both suffer the same fate. But perhaps it gave Degas solace to know that despite the outcome of his and the Impressionists’ business expedition, they were protected from financial ruin by the limited liability of the société anonyme.

The Financial Failure of the Société Anonyme

            Degas exhibited ten works at the Impressionists’ first exhibition, held from April 15 to May 15 in 1874. The exhibition featured a total of 30 artists and 165 works of art, with an admission price of 1 franc and catalogue price of 50 centimes.[47] When the exhibition ended, it was the responsibility of the so-called “control committee” to prepare a concluding financial statement. The committee consisted of Renoir, Béliard, and Gaston de LaTouche, who consulted with Ottin — the treasurer — to prepare the report. The committee found that the expenses for the exhibition (which included rent, decorators, light, posters, policemen, insurance, and wages) totaled 9,727.20 francs. The income from the exhibition (which included admission fees, catalogue sales, sales commissions, and small gifts) totaled 10,221.40 francs. The exhibition had therefore resulted in a net earnings of just 949.20 francs. When this sum was divided among the members of the société anonyme, most of them did not even make enough money to be able to pay their annual dues and receive a share of stock.[48]

            A few months later, Renoir presided over a general assembly of the société anonyme, held on December 17, 1873. There, the members were given the details of the findings of the control committee and treasurer’s report. Even after paying all its external debts, the group had liabilities totaling 3,713 francs, but only possessed 277.99 francs on hand. Therefore, if the members wanted to continue the operation of the organization, they would each have to pay 184.50 francs to cover internal debts and to reinstate the operating fund. The members of the société, conservative businesspeople as they were, unanimously voted to liquidate the organization. Renoir, Sisley, and Pierre-Isidore Bureau comprised the liquidation committee.[49] Although they did not have any outstanding external debts, had the Impressionists incurred any significant costs that they could not pay back, the limited liability of their organization would have protected them financially.

            Less than a week shy of its anniversary, the société anonyme coopérative à capital variable d’artistes-peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. was disbanded. The Impressionists continued to hold exhibitions — staging seven more as a group — but never again did they employ a formal organizational structure or the name société anonyme. The cover of the catalogue of the second group exhibition listed did not list them as a group, but named each artist individually. The nom social of the société anonyme had disappeared once and for all. But what remained was the curious legacy of an “artistic corporation” — of a group of artists turned into entrepreneurs.

---

[1]          Quoted in: Moffett, Charles S. The New Painting, Impressionism, 1874-1886. Geneva, Switzerland: R. Burton, 1986. 104.

[2]          Quoted in: Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. New York City, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1973. 309.

[3]          Quoted in: Moffett, 104.

[4]          Nord, Philip G. The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-century France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995. 52.

[5]          Freedeman, Charles Eldon. Joint-stock Enterprise in France, 1807-1867: from Privileged Company to Modern Corporation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1979. Xiii.

[6]          De Colyar, H. A. "Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the Codifying Ordinances of Louis XIV." Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation ns 13.1 (1912): 56-86. JSTOR. Cambridge University Press on Behalf of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/752554>.

[7]          Howard, Stanley E. "Business Partnerships in France before 1807." The Accounting Review 7.4 (1932): 242-57. JSTOR. American Accounting Association. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/238183>.

[8]          Translated in: Howard, Stanley E. "The Societe Anonyme: From Joint Account to Business Corporation." The Accounting Review 8.1 (1933): 11-21. JSTOR. American Accounting Association. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/238593>.

[9]          Landes, David S. "French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the Nineteenth Century." The Journal of Economic History 9.1 (1949): 45-61. JSTOR. Cambridge University Press on Behalf of the Economic History Association. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2113720>.

[10]         Translated by the author from: "Société Anonyme Coopérative D'artistes-peintres, Sculpteurs, Etc. à Paris." Chronique Des Arts Et De La Curiosité (1874): 19. Archive.org. Paris : Gazette Des Beaux-arts. <http://www.archive.org/details/chroniquedesar1874pariuoft>.

[11]         "Impressionism: Art and Modernity." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Metmuseum.org. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm>.

[12] Moffet, 116.

[13]         Freedeman, 15.

[14]         "Des Sociétés." Code De Commerce. Paris: Stereotype D' Hernan, 1807. 94-99.

[15]         Dunham, Arthur Louis. The Industrial Revolution in France, 1815-1848. New York: Exposition, 1955. 409.

[16]         Quoted in: Freedeman, 59.

[17]         Freedeman, 108-111.

[18]         Translated by the author from: Coquelin, Charles. "Des Sociétés Commerciales En France Et En Angleterre." Revue Des Deux Mondes. Vol. 3. Bruxelles, 1843. 163-97.

[19]         Mill, John Stuart. Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1852.

[20]         Rist, Marcel. "A French Experiment with Free Trade: The Treaty of 1860." Essays in French Economic History,. Homewood, IL: Published for the American Economic Association by R.D. Irwin, 1970. 286.

[21]         Caron, François. An Economic History of Modern France. New York: Columbia UP, 1979. 42.

[22]         Coquelin, Charles. "Commercial Associations of France and England." Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review. Vol. 12. New York: F. Hunt, 1845. 414.

[23]         Translated by the author from: "Loi Sur Les Sociétés." Journal Des Economistes. Vol. 7. Paris, 1867. 425. Ser. 3.

[24]         Bourguignat, Auguste. Commentaire De La Loi Sur Les Sociétés Du 24-29 Juillet, 1867. By Auguste Mathieu. Paris, 1868. 353.

[25]         Rewald, 312.

[26]         Moffet, 94.

[27]         Quoted in: Denvir, Bernard. The Impressionists at First Hand. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1987. 35.

[28]         Quoted in: Rewald, 172.

[29]         Pitman, Dianne W. Bazille: Purity, Pose, and Painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1998. 205.

[30]         Quoted in: Shikes, Ralph E., and Paula Harper. Pissarro, His Life and Work. New York: Horizon, 1980. 103.

[31]         Roe, Sue. The Private Lives of the Impressionists. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 123.

[32]         Freedeman, 144.

[33]         Rewald, 312.

[34]         Platzman, Steven. Cézanne: The Self-Portraits. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 93.

[35]         Roe, 123.

[36]         Moffet, 105

[37]         Brown, Marilyn. Degas and the Business of Art a Cotton Office in New Orleans. University Park, Pa: Published for College Art Association by the Pennsylvania State UP, 1994. 13.

[38]         Rewald, John. "Degas and His Family in New Orleans." Edgar Degas, His Family and Friends in New Orleans. New Orleans: Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, 1965. 11-32.

[39]         Quoted in: Barnes, Rachel, ed. Degas By Degas. New York: Bracken Books, 1992. 32.

[40]         Brown, 218.

[41]         Brown, 32.

[42]         Kindleberger, Charles Poor. Economic Growth in France and Britain, 1851-1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1964. 116.

[43]         Brown, 13.

[44]         Quoted in: Denvir, 141.

[45]         Quoted in: Barnes, 32.

[46]         Brown, 217-220.

[47]         Catalogue reproduced in: "Première Exposition." Impressionist Group Exhibitions. Comp. Theodore Reff. New York: Garland, 1981.

[48]         Rewald, 334.

[49]         Rewald, 336.