Oscar Guët (1801–1871) - Violetta's confession from Le Bravo

Charlemagne Oscar GUËT
(Meaux, 1801 – Paris, 1871)

Violetta's confession from Le Bravo, a work by James Fenimore Cooper

Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower left
50 x 61 cm
1834

Exhibitions:
- Paris, Salon of 1835, n°1016
- Douai, Salon of 1837, n°146

We attach three volumes of Cooper's “Complete Works” (Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1835, paperbacks)

Charlemagne Oscar Guët was born on February 24, 1801, in Meaux. The son of a carpenter, he successfully entered the École des Beaux-Arts on October 30, 1820, and followed the teachings of Hersent then Horace Vernet. He started at the Salon in 1819. He sent portraits, genre scenes and some still life there. He also participated in several provincial exhibitions (Valenciennes, Lille, Douai, Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Mulhouse, Lyon, Rouen, etc.). He made his last shipment in 1850. Oscar was distinguished several times at the Paris Salon: third class in 1824, second class in 1832 and first class in 1839. He was made a knight of the Legion of Honor in 1846. The artist died on November 29, 1871, in Paris and was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

Oscar Guët married Marie Sophie Gaspard (1798-1867) with whom they had two children:
- Marie Gabrielle Guët (1823-?) who married the Lorraine artist Charles Gomien (1808-1876) on November 5, 1842,
- Clément Oscar Guët (1825-1894), future administrator of the Compagnie Parisienne du Gaz.

Museums: Versailles, Ottawa, Tatihou, Bayonne, Douai…

Our painting takes as its theme Le Bravo, a novel written by the American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). Le Bravo, whose plot takes place in Venice, names nothing more and nothing less than a hitman in Italian slang. This Venetian story, published in English for the first time in 1831, was immediately translated into French.
The scene romantically illustrates the following passage: “The words that Violetta gave, whispered in a low voice, were heard only by the one to whose paternal ear they were addressed, and by this formidable being whose confession she hoped would disarm the wrath” (Le Bravo, chapter 7).
This novel had a rapid and resounding success as demonstrated by the multiple representations which were made of it in painting during the decade 1835-1845.