The Museum of Fine Arts in Tournai has the only two works by Édouard Manet preserved in Belgium. Both are true masterpieces of French impressionism.
Argenteuil is also a work of notable importance because it corresponds to one of the artist’s first impressionist paintings. During the summer of 1874, Claude Monet invited his friend Édouard Manet to join him in order to capture together the incessant play of light on the water. The boater is portrayed as Rudolf Leenhoff, the artist’s brother-in-law, while the identity of the woman who accompanies him remains unknown.
During his lifetime, Édouard Manet still refused to part with his masterpiece. It was only after his death in 1889 that Henri Van Cutsem was able to buy it from his widow, Suzanne Manet, before bequeathing its collection to the city of Tournai.