François Forichon

Academic Study

1889

Acrylic on canvas, signed and dated (lower right), 91cm x 62cm (112cm x 82cm framed). (Provenance: in the collection of the artist Michael Leonard (British 1933-2023) until his dea...

Oil on canvas Signed (lower right) 75cm × 75cm (93cm × 95cm framed) An influential figurative painter of the 20th century. From 1928 to 1948, he exhibited his work regularly at the ...

Oil on board, 62cm x 42cm, (70cm x 50cm framed). The picture is in good condition. Plummer trained at the Royal Academy Schools in the early 1950s, championed by Stanley Spencer and Sir Herbert Read, he was the recipient of the coveted Leverhulme Scholarship. In a mixed career which included illustration work for The National Trust, anatomical illustration for Guys Hospital and teaching, painting ran parallel to his commercial work. Plummer specialised in the medium of egg tempera, as well as oil painting, a technique little used since the frescos of the Renaissance, he often worked on a large scale, but in tremendous detail, combining Classical iconography and formal composition with visual exploration evocative of William Blake and...

Alkyd-oil on Masonite, signed and dated (middle left), 61cm (diam.), (83cm diam. framed). (This work was kept by the artist for his personal collection. It remained in his collection...

Louis-Gabriel BLANCHET (Versailles, 1701 – Rome, 1772) Presumed self-portrait of the artist Oil on canvas H. 73 cm; W. 60 cm Circa 1730 Originally presented in a Restoration period frame with a "Mignard" cartouche, this beautiful painting initially appeared to us as a work from northern Italy. However, it exuded a rather French form of refinement, suggesting that its artist may have assimilated a dual influence from both sides of the Alps. We thank our colleague and friend Philippe Mendès for spontaneously and judiciously "bringing out" the name of Louis-Gabriel Blanchet, a Romanized French portraitist, whose spirit and stylistic characteristics we clearly recognize here. Blanchet's "French" years, before his final departure for Rome in 1728, following his winning of the second Grand Prix for painting after Subleyras in 1727, are extremely poorly documented. His father, Gabriel, was valet to Blouin, himself Louis XIV's first valet at the time. According to Thierry Lefrançois, Blanchet was one of the few students of Nicolas Bertin (1667-1736), whose studio he is said to have joined in the early 1720s. At a baptism on March 24, 1724, where he was godfather, he is mentioned as a painter in the picture store of the Duke of Antin, the director of buildings between 1708 and 1736. At this time, he was probably already married to Jeanne Quément, with whom he had a daughter also named Jeanne, who would marry Nicolas Aviet, the son of a valet in the queen's wardrobe, in Versailles in 1738. When Blanchet arrived in Rome in October 1728, he was accompanied by Subleyras, Trémolières, and Slodtz. He enjoyed the goodwill of Vleughels, the director of the Académie de France, which had been based at the Palazzo Mancini since 1725, even though the latter was not always kind to our resident. From 1732, he was under the protection of the Duke of Saint-Aignan when he took up his post as ambassador to Rome. Along with Slodtz and Subleyras, they formed a trio of friends, joined by Joseph Vernet shortly after his arrival in Rome in 1734. Slodtz and Blanchet, on the occasion of Subleyras's marriage in 1739, were there to attest that their friend was not bound by any marital commitment, and Blanchet was a witness at Vernet's wedding in 1745. It is most likely from these early years in Rome that our portrait of the artist dates, the expression and turn of his face irresistibly reminiscent of a self-portrait. The still relatively youthful features may correspond to Blanchet's thirty-something years, and the fluffy wig was still fashionable at this time. The painting fits well with the depiction of a young painter wanting to display both the beginnings of success and a certain simplicity or restraint. A slight smile expresses a form of assurance in this man with a gentle, sincere gaze and a face radiating a keen sense of wit. We find here the air of intimacy present in almost all of Blanchet's portraits, even those from the 1750s and 1760s, as well as an almost complicity with the viewer. The spirit of the painting is quite close to that of the presumed portrait of Bouchardon (painted around 1730) and the portrait of Pannini, painted in 1736, but it possesses a more natural quality, notably thanks to the absence of decorum. Our work exhibits the characteristics of Blanchet's paintings: elegance, luminosity (especially in the whites), vibrant and refined colors (here, the harmony of the garnet of the garment and the slate blue of the background, whose uniformity is tempered by a very sketched landscape and a grove of greenery), light complexions, rather rosy cheekbones, often full lips, and rather tight framing. According to the Academy's rules, Blanchet's stay should have ended in the spring of 1732, but, for reasons unknown, he remained in the Eternal City until his death, as did his friend Subleyras, with whom he shared accommodation until the late 1730s. The latter regularly called upon him to collaborate on his paintings, such as The Meal at Simon's. Through Saint-Aignan's intervention, Blanchet was employed in the late 1730s by the Stuart princely family, then exiled in Italy. He notably produced copies (now lost) after Liotard of the portraits of Charles Edward and Henry Benedict, the sons of James III Stuart. The latter also commissioned three other portraits (now in the National Portrait Gallery in London), whose more formal character contrasts with the intimate spirit of Blanchet's portraits. Blanchet frequented English painters, such as the landscape painter Richard Wilson, and studied with the Scottish portraitist Katherine Read...

French School circa 1645 Portrait of Cardinal Mazarin - Sketch Oil on canvas H. 41.5 cm; W. 27 cm Provenance: Collection of the Reverend Georges Downing Bowles (1789-1863) Would ...

SPRING BEAUTY - Oil on canvas painting by Angelo Granati, Italy 2011 Gold leaf gilded, pleated silk and mirror wooden frame ext. mis. cm. 164x106. This is his reinterpretation of pa...

Auguste-Joseph Delécluse (Roubaix 1855 - Paris 1928) Portrait of the artist's son, Eugène Delécluse Oil on canvas H. 98 cm; W. 116 cm Signed lower right 1903 Exhibition: 1903, Salon...