Victor Chocquet

As a senior editor at the Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes, he was present at all the exhibitions where he defended painters confronted with mockery and insults.

At a very young age, he devoted all his resources to the purchase of works of art: paintings (including those of Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier) porcelain, and furniture.

[2] During this first sale of the "Société anonyme des artistes" at the Hôtel Drouot on 24 March 1875, the painters' receipts did not cover their expenses, the average price of a painting amounting to 100 fr.

[3] Particularly enthusiastic about Paul Cézanne whose paintings he saw at Père Tanguy's home, he spent a lot of energy verbally defending the painters at the 1876 and 1877 exhibitions to which he lent works from his collection.

Despite the quolibets that welcomed Cézanne's presentation of his own portrait and despite violent criticism from the press, he was not discouraged, even when his resources diminished when he took early retirement (1877).