Life's a pretty picnic

French artists have appropriated alfresco dining ever since Édouard Manet scandalised Paris with his Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, yet many charming scenes were painted in Britain, too, and are worth rediscovering

- Deborah Nicholls-Lee

THE verdant scene in Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863), art's best-known evocation of the delights of picnicking, contrasts with the smothering crowds at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. A naked woman—perhaps fresh from a dip in the river—lounges in a glade with two fully dressed men, as another woman, wrapped in diaphanous cloth, bathes in the background and an upset food basket in the foreground hints at moral transgression. The shock value of this scenario—a female nude was perfectly acceptable in mythological scenes, yet scandalous in a modern context, especially when her nakedness was underscored by clothed men—together with the picture's monumental proportions (it measures nearly 82in by 104in), made it an instant talking point. The Foursome, Manet's nickname for his painting, would go on to inspire Claude Monet's (much tamer) Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1865-66), now in the same French gallery; and James Tissot's 1870 Picnic, where the diners may all be elegantly dressed, but the stage is set for yet more sensual indulgence.

Although these French picnics loom largest in art history, across the Channel, depictions of alfresco meals were also being painted and deserve their moment in the sun, whether it’s John Constable's bucolic