Prince Albert II had a sneak peek of the Eva Gonzales: Journey of a Free-Spirited Artist exhibition one day before it officially opened at the Petit Palais in Paris on Monday 14 September 2026. The Sovereign was accompanied by Emmanuel Grégoire, Mayor of Paris, as well as the exhibition’s curators.
Prince Albert II is a major lender to the exhibition. The Princely Collections include around ten paintings by Eva Gonzales (1847–1883) while the Palace Archives hold a collection of family documents documenting her history.
The exhibition features almost one hundred paintings, pastels, and prints. It pays tribute to an artist with tremendous talent, who sadly passed away at the age of 34 from childbirth. On display are Eva Gonzales’s graceful portraits of female figures, scenes from everyday life, light-filled interiors, and landscapes painted along the Normandy coastline.
“Eva Gonzalès has never been the subject of a large retrospective, neither in France nor internationally. Endowed with a remarkable sensibility, she was the only pupil of Édouard Manet, with whom she shared an exceptional artistic relationship. Supported by a loving and cultured family, she succeeded in establishing her own distinctive voice at a time that was not particularly welcoming to women artists,” says the Petit Palais in a recent press release.
Eva Gonzales was a French artist of Monegasque descent. The daughter of the serial novelist Emmanuel Gonzales (1815–1887)—whose bust stands in the Saint-Martin Gardens—she came from a Spanish lineage that had settled in Monaco in the early 17th century, at a time when a Spanish royal garrison was stationed on the Rock to defend Monaco’s sovereignty.
“Eva Gonzales: Journey of a Free-Spirited Artist” is on display at the Petit Palais until 24 January 2027. An adapted version of the exhibition will be presented at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in the spring of 2027.
