Detail from Le Joueur de Flûte (The Flute Player) by Félix Bracquemond, after a painting by Paul Alfred de Curzon, 19th century. Dayton C. Miller Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
after a painting by Paul Alfred de Curzon, painter, 1820-1895
This etching by Bracquemond is based on a painting by Alfred de Curzon originally titled Vue de Tivoli (View of Tivoli). In a two-volume monograph on Alfred de Curzon by his son, Henri de Curzon, it is stated that Curzon painted about ten small landscapes of Italy and Poitou, France, between 1853 and 1855. Among them was a landscape near Rome painted in 1855, Vue de Tivoli. Curzon had previously made a charcoal of the same scene in 1853. It is specifically mentioned that Bracquemond's etching of the painting was titled, instead, Le Joueur de flûte (The Flute Player). The original painting was a small, vertical landscape, measuring about 18 x 13 inches (46 x 33 cm.).
It is described as follows: "The city is visible in the left distance, atop tall sheer rocks. In the foreground, at the right, is a mass of large trees on a kind of knoll at the border of which a shepherd plays a flute. This part of the painting is entirely in shadow, but the distance is luminous." The painting was exhibited in Marseille in 1855, and was purchased by the Société des Amis des Arts of Marseille.[1]
The inscription at the top of Bracquemond's etching, L'Artiste, is the title of a French periodical. Thus, this etching may have appeared in an issue of L'Artiste in the mid-1850s, or it may have been published separately under the auspices of L'Artiste. Though described as a flute in the literature on the painting by Curzon, the instrument in the Miller etching is most likely a duct flute, possibly a recorder.
About the Artists
Félix Bracquemond, painter and engraver, 1833-1914
Félix Bracquemond was an important 19th-century French artist who was born in Paris in 1833, and who died in Sèvres, near Paris, in 1914. Though also a painter, he is best known for his engravings and etchings. Of the 900 plates he created, about half were original designs and the other half reproductive prints. In his reproductive work, he was remarkably versatile and captured successfully the individual styles of the artists whose work he copied -- Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Millet, or Meissonier. He had the esteem and friendship of literary figures as well as artists -- the Goncourts, Gavarni, Gautier, Fantin-Latour, Legros, Manet, Edmond About, Baudelaire, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and Banville. In the 1860s, he was associated with the circle of Manet, and he submitted work to the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1879, and 1880. Bracquemond was especially interested in Japanese prints which had much influence on his own work. Besides painting and etching, Bracquemond also worked in ceramics and enamel painting. From 1873 to 1880, he was the director of the Haviland Limoges factory in Auteuil, and designed several porcelain services. He won first prize for his etchings in the Exposition Universelle in 1900. He also designed jewelry, furniture, tapestries and bookbindings, in collaboration with Rodin and Jules Chéret; and, he provided designs for Gustave Geoffroy, the director of the Gobelins.[2]
Paul Alfred de Curzon, painter, 1820-1895
Paul Alfred de Curzon, a French painter, was born near Poitiers in 1820 and died in Paris in 1895. He was at first a student of Drolling at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but then studied with the landscape painter, Nicolas-Louis Cabat (1812-1893). Curzon entered his first work, a landscape, at the Salon of 1845. In 1849, he competed for the Grand Prix de Rome in the category of historical landscape. He did not win, but after an appeal by Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), he was awarded a place at the Academy of Rome where he studied from 1850 to 1853. He traveled extensively in Italy with fellow artists in these years and even traveled to Greece in 1852 with Charles Garnier (1825-1898), the future architect of the Paris Opéra. His landscapes and genre scenes from these travels were submitted to the Salon in the 1850s. In France again in 1853, he did paint some religious scenes for a church in Autun and for another in Paris, and he also provided four allegorical panels for the foyer of Garnier's Opéra in Paris. Curzon was a fine figure painter and he painted several works based on classical mythology, but he is known primarily as a landscapist. In the 1860s and 1870s, he continued to paint scenes of Italy and Greece based on memories of his earlier travels. He was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur in 1865.[3]
Notes
- See Henri de Curzon, Alfred de Curzon, peintre (1820-1895): Sa vie et son oeuvre d'après ses souvenirs, ses lettres, ses contemporains. Paris: Librairie Renouard, H. Laurens, Editeur, [1914]. 2 vols. Library of Congress. General Collection. LC call number: ND553.C97C8. Vue de Tivoli is mentioned in vol. 1, p. 149, and is described in vol. 2, p. 51, no. 134 (painting), and p. 117, no. 455 (charcoal). [back to article]
- See Bénézit for a long biography of Bracquemond and a list of his most important works. See also an article, "Félix Bracquemond" in Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online
(subscription only). [back to article] - For additional information on Curzon, see Bénézit and an article by Jon Whiteley, "Alfred de Curzon" in Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online (subscription only). [back to article]