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Lot 421:
Description
Jean-Jacques Henner Attributed French Symbolist School Oil On Canvas Nude Portrait Painting, No Signature Apparent,
19th Century
The artwork was created in the style of the French Symbolist school of art movement, which was characterized by dream-like, mystical paintings that aimed to resonate with viewers on a spiritual level. The painting is attributed to Jean-Jacques Henner and the French Symbolist school and dates back to around 1880.
Size:
Sight: 28.35"H x 25.67"W
Frame: 33.11"H x 28.04"W x 2.76"D
Jean-Jacques Henner was a French painter. He was born into a peasant family in the Sundgau and received his first artistic training at Altkirch with Charles Goutzwiller (1810-1900) and later in Strasbourg in the studio of Gabriel-Christophe Guérin (1790-1846). In 1846 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris as a pupil of Michel-Martin Drolling and, from 1851, of François-Edouard Picot.
While a student he was particularly drawn to portraiture, and during his frequent visits to Alsace he made portraits of his family as well as of the notables of the region. He also painted scenes of Alsatian peasant life (e.g. Marie-Ann Henner Churning Butter, 1856; Paris, Mus. Henner).
Although he painted history and portraits, he is probably best known for his prostrate nudes in dreamy landscapes rendered in murky chiaroscuro.
The French Symbolist movement was a diverse group of artists, often working independently, unified by a shared pessimism and weariness of the decadence they perceived in modern society. Some of the major figures in the movement include Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine. The movement was a reaction against naturalism and realism, seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through art.
Condition: nice
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