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Fine Oil On Wood Panel Of Sleeping Infants Period Frame browse these categories for related items... All Items: Paintings: Oil: Europe: French: Pre 1900: item #269147 Please refer to our stock #T0387 when inquiring.
$37,000. |
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Exceptionally Fine oil on wood panel Academic Classicism painting of two sleeping Infants. Measuring: Site/Image: 20.75" by 13" and framed in its period carved and water gilt wood frame measuring a full: 31" by 23". Frame border is 5"+ wide. This Fine and true Museum example of Academic Classicism is superbly executed. Thick and generous use of paint, the artist painted layer upon layer creating this outstanding scene of two babies sleeping upon a bed with draped fabric and textile cover lighted by a light source emerging from the window within the darkened room. Indistinctly artist signed bottom far left corner with artist monogram. Manner of and or follower of William Adolph Bouguereau (1825-1905). Bouguereau famous for his figural works especially of women and children and flesh inspired many artist to strive for such perfection in realism painting of people. He himself was commissioned numerous time to paint infant related paintings, many of the same scene of which the present oil is surely inspired from. _____________________________________________________________________ Literature: William Adolph Bouguereau (1825-1905) is unquestionably one of history's greatest artistic geniuses. Yet in the past century, his reputation and unparalleled accomplishments have undergone a libelous, dishonest, relentless and systematic assault of immense proportions. His name was stricken from most history texts and when included it was only to blindly, degrade and disparage him and his work. Yet, as we shall see, it was he who single handedly opened the French academies to women, and it was he who was arguably the greatest painter of the human figure in all of art history. His figures come to life like no previous artist has ever before or ever since achieved. He wasn't just the best ever at painting human anatomy, more importantly he captured the tender and subtlest nuances of personality and mood. Bouguereau caught the very souls and spirits of his subjects much like Rembrandt. Rembrandt is said to have captured the soul of age. Bouguereau captured the soul of youth. Having died in 1905, we can suppose it best that he was not here to see the successful assault on traditional art that turned the art world inside out and upside down in the decades that followed his death. His fate was to be much like that of Rembrandt, whose work was also ridiculed and banished from museums and official art circles for the hundred years following his death. Rembrandt's reputation wasn't resuscitated until the 1790's (he died in 1669) due to the influence of the founder of the Royal Academy in London, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Even as recently as 1910, Reynolds paintings brought higher prices at auction than Rembrandt. Bouguereau's re-appreciation can rather accurately be traced from about 1979 when his prices at auction quadrupled that year alone, and then was further catapulted by the 1984 retrospective that traveled from the Petite Palais in Paris, to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada and finally to the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford. In 1980 The Metropolitan Museum in New York permanently hung two of his works that been left in storage from early in the century. Since 1960, his values in the market place have literally exploded, doubling on average every 3.5 years. From works selling for and average $500 to $1500 in 1960, they have accelerated to where in the last three years alone his auction records have been repeatedly broken another 4 times. In 1998 The Heart's Awakening sold for $1,410,000 at Christie's New York. In 1999 Cupid et Psyche, Enfants sold for $1,760,000 also at Christie's to be surpassed the very next day at Sotheby's when Alma Perens owned by Sylvester Stalone sold for $2,650,00. That record only lasted one year until May of 2000, when Charite sold $3,520,000 back at Christie's. Over the last 20 years his paintings all over the world have been taken out of their crates, basements, storage rooms and attics, dusted off, many cleaned and expertly restored, and today over a hundred museums and institutions proudly have his works on permanent exhibit. _____________________________________________________________________ Frame: Period carved wood frame with scroll work design elements incorporating dolphin (fish) creatures spewing water spout designs within the frames borders. Original water gilding still in tact and present. Frame is equally beautiful and museum quality. Both frame and painting are in excellent condition. Please view all photos text for more information. |
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