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Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe)

Another major early work is The Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe), originally Le Bain. The Paris Salon rejected it for exhibition in 1863, but Manet agreed to exhibit it at the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Rejected). This parallel salon was initiated by Emperor Napoleon III as a solution to the public outcry after the official salon's Selection Committee only accepted 2217 paintings out of more than 5000 submissions, and allowed rejected artists to still display their paintings if they chose.

The painting's juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman was controversial, as was its abbreviated, sketch-like handling, an innovation that distinguished Manet from Courbet. One critic stated that the brushwork appeared to have been done with a "floor mop". However, others such as his friend Antonin Proust celebrated the painting, and novelist Émile Zola was so affected by the experience of viewing it that he later based the title painting in his novel L'Œuvre ("The Work of Art") on Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe.

At the same time, Manet's composition reveals his study of the old masters, as the disposition of the main figures is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi 's engraving of the Judgement of Paris (c. 1515) based on a drawing by Raphael. Two additional works cited by scholars as important precedents for Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe are Pastoral Concert (c. 1510) and The Tempest, both of which are attributed variously to Italian Renaissance masters Giorgione or Titian.

Le Déjeuner and James McNeill Whistler 's Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl were the two most discussed works of the Salon des Refusés, which itself would become one of the most famous art exhibitions of all time. Following the Salon, Manet became yet more notorious and widely discussed. However, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Manet's other paintings still failed to sell, and Manet continued living off of his inheritance from his recently deceased father.