Edouard Manet, “Execution of the Emperor Maximilian,” 1867, oil on canvas, 77 1/8 by 102 ¼ inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Mr and Mrs Frank Gair Macomber, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Museum of Modern Art will present, “Manet and the Execution of Maximilian,” on view November 5–January 29.

Abandoned by the French government that sent him to Mexico, the Emperor Maximilian was executed by a firing squad of Benito Juárez’s army at Querétaro, north of Mexico City, on June 19, 1867.

News of the execution reached Paris on July 1, just as Napoleon III was inaugurating that year’s Universal Exposition. Édouard Manet set to work almost immediately, and by early 1869 completed a series of three large paintings, an oil sketch and one lithograph of the subject.

Edouard Manet, “The Execution of Emperor Maximilian,” 1868–69, oil on canvas, 99 3/16 by 118 7/8 inches; Kunsthalle, Mannheim. —Kunsthalle Mannheim, Margita Wickenhäuser photo

“Manet and the Execution of Maximilian” will unite these works for the first time in the United States, with selected additional works, examining the evolution from one painting to the next, which was fueled by a steady stream of written and graphic accounts of the event. The exhibition will be accompanied by education programs and a fully illustrated publication.

The exhibition is organized by John Elderfield, the museum’s Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture.

The Museum of Modern Art is at 11 West 53rd Street. For information, www.moma.org or 212-708-9400.