Portrait of an actress, Louis DESMAREST, circa 1890-1900

Oil on canvas probably representing a theater actress in Antiquity. She seems to be wearing a staff and a mask of Hercules wearing a lion's head, a rich necklace with a Medusa head around her neck. Signed lower left L.DESMAREST, circa 1890-1900. Louis DESMAREST is known as a portrait painter, and it is with this genre that he exhibited one at the Salon of 1873. Student of Gosse, Barrias, Cambon, Blanc, and Jules Breton at the Beaux-Arts. French School. Bénézit, Volume III, p.525. Needs cleaning, very nice presence. 150x102 with the frame.