The Burrell Collection

Visit of the exhibition Courbet, Degas, Cézanne...

Sir William Burrell was an outstanding collector of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; he owned a collection of approximately 8000 pieces from every era, and from all over the world. In 1944, he donated the whole of his collection to the City of Glasgow. And although some works have been loaned from time to time, none has ever left the United Kingdom, so Marseille is presenting for the very first time a wonderful collection of Realist and Impressionist works of French painting. You will be able to admire the works Sir William Burrell bought from the Scottish art dealer, Alexander Reid, a major figure in the distribution of painting of the Barbizon School and of Impressionist painting. Burrell’s taste in nineteenth century French painting tended towards Realism, but his collection also includes treasures of the Barbizon School. Landscapes by Corot and Daubigny and seascapes by Boudin transport us to the heart of an era while also leading us to the Impressionists with Manet, Degas and Sisley. All these paintings reveal the questioning of representation in the second half of the nineteenth century. The works shown by Manet, Degas and Cézanne are in this sense masterpieces with a direct link to the modernity of the twentieth century.