“C’est vraiment de l’art, parce que cela sort d’un rêve et d’un cœur” [“It’s really art, because it comes out of a dream and a heart”], said a critic about Danguy . This delicate and superb portrait is one of the best pieces by the symbolist painter Jean Danguy. His symbolist oeuvre – in painting … Continue reading “Jean Danguy”

This work is the most spectacular and most celebrated of George Morren’s neo-impressionist oeuvre. The piece is equally among the greatest specimens of the pointillism movement in Belgium in the early 1890’s. In his early twenties, Morren presented this work at his first salon, which was organized in Antwerp by the Association pour l’Art in … Continue reading “George Morren”

Born in Reims in 1798, Alphonse Périn studied in Paris in the atelier of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, where he met in 1817 his life-long best companion, the painter Victor Orsel. During this period, Périn dedicated himself to the genre of historical landscapes, notably close to the master Jean-Victor Bertin, himself a former pupil of Pierre-Henri Valenciennes. … Continue reading “Alphonse-Henri Périn”

A very fine sheet depicting Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) at the Broussais Hospital in Paris, where he died in January 1896. For the last ten years of his life, Verlaine spent long stays in various hospitals, totalizing more than four years. He suffered from a very painful arthritis in the knees (hence the walking stick on … Continue reading “Alexandre Graverol”

Regarded now as one of the most fascinating landscape painters of the early Belgian scene of 19th century, Gilles-François-Joseph Closson remained almost unknown until the revival of a group of his works at the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Liège in the 1980s, and the discovery, in 1994, of an ensemble, in private hands, of canvas … Continue reading “Gilles-François-Joseph Closson”

The present and so-entitled Le Christ noir is certainly one of the most dramatic and key works by Charles Laval, at the end of his life, that occurred a year later. In a way, this sets Laval’s testament, encapsulating his singular personality, as well as an homage to his master, Léon Bonnat, and to his … Continue reading “Charles Laval”

A beautiful architype of the seductive orientalism by Louis-Amable Crapelet. Without sacrificing the topographic exactitude of the scene, the artist achieved to depict a strong sensation of beauty and exoticism of the present Isis temple in Philae. It is very efficient and powerful, a balance between idealistic landscapes and a true depiction of historical sites. … Continue reading “Louis-Amable Crapelet”

Didier Petit de Meurville – painter, art aficionado and prominent collector of antiques and religious art – had many talents, which he seemed to exercise simultaneously and successfully. Born in Haiti in 1793, when the political climate was tumultuous, Petit de Meurville ventured to Lyon and began his career as a silk manufacturer. Soon, the … Continue reading “Didier Petit de Meurville”

Destined to serve the memory of the model in the form of true sacralisation and an affirmation of the sitter’s social rank, Jeune adolescent de la famille Berthelot is a beautiful example of the French romantic sculpture. Introduced in the beginning of the 19th c., the bust became a means to limit movement, expression and … Continue reading “Jean-Pierre Dantan”