18th century french painting GREUZE Portrait of a young girl Oil on canvas

1780-1840

Etienne-Prosper BERNE-BELLECOUR Boulogne-sur-mer, 1838 - Paris, 1910 Oil on canvas 46 x 33 cm (55 x 43 cm with the frame) Signed lower right "To his friend doctor Daymard / E. Berne-Bellecour / 1903" Painting exhibited at Salon des Artistes Français of 1904 (number 136. “Portrait of Mr. Major Daymard”) Very good condition ( only a few and small repaints) As an academic painter, Berne-Bellecour worked for illustrated newspapers after failing at the Prix de Rome in 1859. In 1870, he enlisted in the Frankish Corps of Tirailleurs de la Seine and is decorated with the Military Medal. This will decide his career. Companion of Édouard Detaille and Alphonse de Neuville, he painted battle pictures and portraits of soldiers that made him very well known as a specialist military painter. "The Tirailleurs of the Seine in the battle field...

French school of the second half of the 18th century Oil on canvas 46 x 38 cm (57 x 49 cm with the frame) Very beautiful frame in gilded wood from the Louix XVI period with decoratio...

Adolphe-Felix CALS Paris, 1810 – Honfleur, 1880 Oil on canvas 45 x 38 cm (69 x 63 cm with frame) Signed and dated on the right "Cals / 1879" Label on the back mentioning the model "Jenny Godin" Beautiful 19th century oval frame in carved, decorated and gilded wood Very good condition This is the portrait of Jenny...

Claude VIGNON (After) Tours, 1593 – Paris, 1670 Oil on canvas 60 x 45 cm (80 x 65 cm with the frame) Very good condition In the 17th century the french...

Alfred PLAUZEAU Avanton-Paché (Vienna), 1875 - Hendaye, 1918 Oil on oil 61 x 38 cm (75.5 x 52.5 cm with frame) Signed lower right "A. Plauzeau" Good condition (sevreal restoration, w...

Juan Pablo SALINAS (Attributed to) Madrid, 1871 – Rome, 1946 Oil on canvas on a panel 34 x 22 cm (43 x 31 cm with the frame) Trace of signature lower lef...

Work on canvas Golden wooden frame 82 x 65.5 x 3.5 cm

French school circa 1870 Holy Family under an oak, after Raphaël, on gold background Oil on canvas H. 92 cm; W. 60 cm This aesthetic curiosity takes up the very famous composition b...

Jean DESPUJOLS (Salles 1886 – Shreveport 1965) Portrait of a Henri Martin, mayor of Saint Médard en Jalles (Gironde) Oil on canvas H. 75 cm; L. 60 cm Signed lower right around 1920/2...

Work on canvas Golden wooden frame 56.5 x 66 x 2.2 cm

Attributed to Jacques DUMONT aka DUMONT LE ROMAIN (Paris 1701 - 1781) Presumed portrait of Louis-Joseph de Formanoir (?-1732) Oil on canvas H. 91.5 cm; ...

Julius EXNER (Copenhagen, 1825 - Copenhagen, 1910) Model stripping Oil on canvas H. 122 cm; L. 74 cm Signed and dated 1842 lower right Exhibition: most likely Charlottenborg Salon of 1845, under number 110, titled Modelfigur, awarded with a silver medal Provenance: Emilio Fernando Bolt (c.1860 - 1944), acquired from the artist around 1900, then by descent Our painting was produced as part of the summer sessions organized between 1839 and 1850 by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853), the master of Danish painting of the first half of the 19th century, in his private studio-apartment on the ground floor. floor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. The master brought together a few students there between June and September, rented one or two models for the season, which were painted from different angles, the artists (including Eckersberg himself) sitting side by side. Eckersberg used to paint a fairly small version, the pupils of the larger formats. The work fits more generally into the legendary context of the research and reforms carried out by Eckersberg concerning the studies of nudes and in particular of female nudes, to make this exercise a genre of painting in its own right. Following his two-year stint in Jacques-Louis David's studio in Paris in 1811, Eckersberg had been made aware of work on the nude and in particular on live models, in natural light, while in Denmark the drawings were then only made from casts of antique models or other mannequins. In 1822, when he had been a professor there since 1818, it was he who had the Royal Academy of Copenhagen authorize the study of nudes, no longer in the evening by candlelight, but in natural light; from 1833, it was still he who allowed students to work on nude female models, even if the official authorization of the Academy did not take place until 1839. It was this same year that he instituted his summer sessions, on a private basis, to orient his painting and that of his students towards a new conception of the representation of models: even if the nude remains the real theme, it does not however, this is more than just an academic exercise. The subject is placed in a contemporary interior, with a rather sophisticated decor, and occupied with an intimate activity (it is this type of intimate vein that we will find later in Degas or Cassatt for example); thus in our painting, the young woman is supposed to take off her clothes to wash. The objective is that the viewer forgets that the master and his students are painting a model during a posing session, and that he instead has the impression of being alone with the model, but invisible, almost like a voyeur in spite of himself. Moreover, in these paintings, the model never looks towards the spectator, inducing a psychological distance with him, whereas model and artist are actually physically very close. On the other hand, it is not a question of idealized nudes either, even if Eckersberg, proof of his debt to the antique, chooses fairly classic models and poses. The sensuality is real and very present, with dreamy, even innocent, and timeless expressions (the models do not seem to have a defined age), suave and slow attitudes and movements, and especially with clothes that hide or reveal skillfully parts of the female body: upper buttocks, pronounced hips... Made by an artist under 20, our sensual painting is probably one of the most beautiful and spectacular produced by the students of Eckersberg during these summer sessions. With a perfect balance between the firmness of an ancient statue (it recalls the Venus de Milo) and the softness of the feminine forms, highlighted by a harmonious palette, it captures the attention with many details: the almost photographic folds white clothing...