Ernest Christophe (Loches 1827 - Parigi 1892)

Ernest Christophe (Loches 1827 - Paris 1892) Portrait of a girl Pencil Dimensions: mm 190 x 211 A French sculptor trained by the master François Rude (Dijon 1784 - Paris 1855). He exhibited at the Salons where his sculpture Commedia Umana of 1876 was purchased and exhibited in the Jardin des Tuileries, then at the d'Orsay, and finally restored and recently placed in the Louvre. Integrated into the intellectual environment of his time, a friend of writers and poets, he was a source of inspiration for his friend Charles Boudelaire, who dedicated the poem Danses macabres from the collection Les Fleurs du Mal to him, as well as the poem La Maschera. In this sheet, the artist shows the viewer the interior of a girl's room. The scene is enclosed between two curtains that create almost a theatrical backdrop. With an immediate stroke, the author reproduces a scene of family intimacy from life. The girl is sitting on the bed, perhaps she has just woken up, her lively and frontal face seeks the viewer's gaze. The strength and essentiality of the stroke with which the furniture is drawn contrasts with the care and sensitivity with which the expression on the face is rendered. The drawing, of remarkable mastery and freshness, is attributed to the French sculptor according to the indications present on the old, now lost, mounting.