In parallel with the exhibition "Paris 1874, Inventing impressionism", and on the occasion of the Salon du dessin, the Musée d'Orsay is presenting an anthology of its most beautiful graphic artworks from 1874. In sanguine, charcoal, pastels, or watercolor, on colored paper or drafting film, on cardboard or the page of a notebook, this collection of works shows the new heights the art of drawing had reached in 1874. Preparatory drawings for State commissions to decorate Parisian monuments, sketches for large compositions and easel paintings on display at the Salon, and landscapes from the 'plein air' school jotted down directly from the motif are all testament to the rich variety of artistic creation in 1874.

This exhibition reveals graphic masterpieces from Baudry, Puvis de Chavannes, Degas, Manet, and Pissarro, with some more unusual pieces, such as Boudin's charcoal sketches, taking us by surprise, and highlights certain gifted draftsmen who are little known today.

While these artists appropriated the drawing techniques and traditions of the old masters, they kept them alive solely in order to reinvent them with novel subjects and innovative materials.

This overview of the art of drawing tempers the supposed antagonism between the academic techniques associated with the École des Beaux-Arts and the art of the Impressionist painters.