Boy with soap bubbles, studio of Alexis Grimou (1678-1733)

Portrait of a boy with soap bubbles,
studio of Alexis Grimou (Argenteuil, 1678 – Paris, 1733)
First quarter of 18th century French school
Oil on canvas: h. 79 cm, w. 63,5 cm
Louis XIV period giltwood frame with carved sunflowers at the corners
Framed: h. 101 cm, w. 82 cm

Provenance:
probably Drouot sale, 13/05/1898 lot n° 19: Alexis Grimou, a portrait of a young boy, half-length leaning on a stone balustrade and blowing soap bubbles (canvas 79x63 cm)


Both charming and enigmatic, our work presents a young boy who enjoys blowing soap bubbles. With theatrical lighting, his figure stands out against a green background. His hand resting on a stone entablature, his body turned three-quarters, he is blowing a soap bubble through a straw, which he delicately pinches between his fingers.
Dressed in a 17th-century Dutch style, with a velvet hat with feathers, a velvet jacket adorned with red ribbons over a white blouse, her long curly hair frames a face illuminated by wide, smiling, mischievous eyes. Imbued with the carefree spirit of childhood and a gaiety typical of Dutch paintings in the style of "happy drinker", our work illustrates the theme of the transience and brevity of life, alluding to homo bulla (the bubble symbolizing human life and its fragility), popularized during the Renaissance by Erasmus' Adages (1500), ("if we say that a man is a bubble, how much more so is an old man").

Although a French portrait painter and student of François de Troy and Bon de Boullogne, Alexis Grimou became passionate about Dutch painting in the early 1700s, particularly the work of Rembrandt. He created portraits of fanciful characters in extravagant costumes, musicians, smokers, drinkers. Nicknamed the French Rembrandt, the painter knew how to combine the elegance of the layout with the intelligence of the expression, giving his portraits an anecdotal and spontaneous character inherited from the Nordic tradition. From a pivotal generation between the 17th and 18th centuries, he played a fundamental role in the evolution of the French portrait accompanying the shift from Poussin's history painting to Watteau's fête galante.