Portrait Paintings

Leon Herbo
Belgian, 1850-1907
La Charmeuse
Oil on canvas
31 by 36 in. W/frame 43 by 48 in.

Inventory Number: Art H385
Details
Jean Gabriel Domergue
French, 1889-1962
Le Model
Oil on canvas
36 ¼ by 42 in. W/frame 44 ¼ by 50 in.

Inventory Number: Art D272
Details
Lucien Pissarro
French, 1863-1944
Girl Reading a Book
Oil on canvas
18 ¼ by 15 in. W/frame 24 ¼ by 21 in.

Inventory Number: Art P100
Details
Jean Beraud
French, 1849-1935
Une Parisienne
Oil on canvas
21.9 x 15.2 ins / 55.5 x 38.5 cms

Une Parisienne is a prime example of Béraud’s work; a vivid, elegant portrait of a Parisian society lady from the Belle Époque. His use of browns, greys and blacks make the smiling subject seem alive, as if the sitter were about to step out of the painting to meet the viewer. Béraud has purposefully chosen to paint the woman against a plain backdrop to show the finery of her attire such as the velvet of her jacket and the chiffon of her collar and cuffs. This colour combination recalls the more formal training that Béraud undertook however the bold, firm brushstrokes create a bridge between traditional genre paintings and those of the Impressionists, who were only just emerging when Béraud was painting.

Jean Béraud was an important French painter who was most famed for his paintings of Parisian life during the Belle Époque. During this pre-war period of peace and prosperity Beraud was highly regarded in Parisian society, initially due to the numerous genre paintings he produced.

Béraud was born in St. Petersburg and initially trained in law before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian was in 1870 and the occupation of Paris.

When Béraud began his artistic career he exhibited his works at the Salon, doing so for the first time in 1872 when he was a student of Léon Bonnat. However, his work did not gain serious recognition until 1876, when he produced a genre painting entitled, ‘On the Way Back from the Funeral’.

Notably, this was after the first exhibition of the Impressionists at the Salon des Indépendants in 1874 and as a result, his work is somewhere in the midst of the impressionistic scenes of everyday life and the more academic art of the salon.

Much of his work would contain some sort of mockery of Parisian life at the turn of the century.

Béraud was a very popular artist during his lifetime, however his work was completely ignored by art historians of the period.

Literature:

‘Jean Béraud 1849- 1935- The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By’ catalogue raisonné by Patrick Offenstadt; Page 290, Illustration no. 397



Inventory Number: Art B210
Details
Ramon Pichot
Spanish, 1924-1996
Girl Holding Her Doll
Oil on canvas
25 ½ in. by 21 ½ in. W/frame 32 ¾ in. by 28 ¾ in.

Inventory Number: Art P91
Details
Thomas Hendrick Keyser
Dutch, 1596-1667
Portrait of Lady
Oil on Panel
28 by 23 ¼ in. W/frame 36 by 31 ¼ in.

Inventory Number: Art K47
Details
Sir Thomas Lawrence
English, 1769-1830
Portrait of Lady Digby
Oil on canvas
25 by 20 in. W/frame 31 by 26 in.

Inventory Number: Art L71
Details
Francois-Xavier Fabre
French 1766-1837
Portrait of Chevalier de Vernègues
Oil on canvas
46 by 35 in. W/frame 58 by 47 in.

LITERATURE:
Toledo Museum News, No. 66, September 1933, reproduced;
B.-M. Godwin, Toledo Museum of Art, Catalogue of European Paintings, Toledo 1939, p. 168, reproduced p. 169;
L. Hautecoeur, Louis David, Paris 1954, p. 168;
D.L. Dowd, "Art and the Theater During the French Revolution: The Role of Louis David," in Art Quarterly, vol. 23, Spring 1960;The Toledo Museum of Art, The European Paintings, Toledo 1976, p. 389 (as Follower of Jacques-Louis David).

NOTE:
Based on images, Dr. Laure Pellicer has identified this portrait to be a work by François-Xavier Fabre. She believes the portrait to depict the Chevalier de Vernègues who was appointed by Louis 18th as the Resident Minister in Tuscany in 1818.



Inventory Number: Art F459
Details
Joseph Oppenheimer
German, 1876-1966
Portrait of a Young Lady
Oil on canvas
36 in. by 28 ½ in. W/frame 46 by 38 1/2 in.

Inventory Number: Art O12
Details
Jef Leempoels
Belgium, 1867–1935
A Young Girl
Oil on canvas
39 by 24 in. W/frame 51 by 36 in.

Inventory Number: Art L81
Details
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