Offered by Galerie William Diximus
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The bust portrait of a young woman is part of the speciality that made painter Jean Baptiste Santerre famous: "fantasy figures ."
He took pleasure in sketching characters without their knowledge. Among his famous paintings are: The Reader, The Woman Drawing a Curtain, The Woman Sealing a Letter, and The Coquette.
Without seeking to paint the subject's features accurately, the painter instead offers a pleasant representation, a gentle feeling of unreal beauty, a subtle state of mind in line with the era, where sensuality and candour intermingle. These paintings were immediately successful and are generally small in size, like ours.
The features of our character are certainly those of Marguerite Blanchot, his pupil but also his companion who accompanied him throughout his life, she was his model for several paintings.
(Allegory of Painting, Basel Museum ‘Offentliche Kunstmuseum’ (65 cm x 53 cm).
The attribution to Jean Baptiste Santerre and his studio is confirmed by a painting kept at the Albi Museum, which came from the Office des Biens Privés (MNR.128):
This painting is almost identical to ours, with a slight difference in perspective: the young woman is shown from further away and an additional section has been added to her tunic in the lower part of the painting. It is slightly larger and oval in shape (82 x 62 cm).
Life of Jean Baptiste Santerre:
Born in Magny en Vexin in 1651, after a short apprenticeship in drawing with a minor master, he joined the studio of the painter Bon Boullogne around 1676, where his work attracted considerable attention. After opening a small studio in Paris, he produced numerous portraits in the classical style, but always striving for perfection. He studied anatomy for several years and his style moved away from the academic style to capture moments of life, introducing psychology into his paintings and daring to depict characters far from the usual poses: the dreamer, the sleeping girl, the beggar...
Success came quickly, and he exhibited at the Salon de Peinture. In 1704, he was accepted into the Académie de Peinture with his painting ‘Suzanne et les vieillards’ (Susanna and the Elders), now in the Louvre.
He became painter to the king and was housed in the Louvre from 1708 onwards. He died prematurely in 1717, naming Marguerite Blanchot as his sole heir in his will.
dimension with frame: 89 cm x76.5 cm
dimension without frame : 62 cm x 50.5 cm
