Salon des Refusés
A 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) which was a parallel exhibition to the official Salon, as an alternative exhibition in the Palais des Champs-Elysée. The "Salon des Refusés" was initiated by Emperor Napoleon III as a solution to a problematic situation which came about as the Selection Committee of the Salon that year rejected 2,783 paintings of the ca. 5000. Each painter could decide whether to take the opportunity to exhibit at the "Salon des Refusés", less than 500 of the rejected painters chose to do so.