Jules Joseph Lefebvre

Jules Joseph Lefebvre
Jules Joseph Lefebvre (no later than 1903)
Jules Joseph Lefebvre (no later than 1903)
Born (1836-03-14)14 March 1836[1]
Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France
Died 24 February 1911(1911-02-24) (aged 74)[1][2]
Paris, France
Other names Jules Lefebvre[2]
Occupation Painter
Jules Lefebvre in his studio

Jules Joseph Lefebvre (French: [ʒyl ʒɔzɛf ləfɛːvʁ]) (14 March 1836 – 24 February 1911) was a French figure painter, educator and theorist.

Early life

Lefebvre was born in Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, on 14 March 1836.[1] He entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet.

Career

He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. In 1891, he became a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

He was professor at the Académie Julian in Paris.[3] Lefebvre is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. Among his famous students were Fernand Khnopff, Kenyon Cox,[4] Félix Vallotton, Ernst Friedrich von Liphart,[5] Georges Rochegrosse, [6] the Scottish-born landscape painter William Hart, Walter Lofthouse Dean, and Edmund C. Tarbell, who became an American Impressionist painter.[7] Another pupil was the miniaturist Alice Beckington.[8] Jules Benoit-Lévy entered his workshop at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.[9]

Many of his paintings are single figures of beautiful women. Among his best portraits were those of M. L. Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874).[4]

Lefebvre died in Paris on 24 February 1911.[1][2]

Significant milestones

Selected works

Vittoria Colonna, (1861)
Clémence Isaure
Graziella, 1878 (depicting the protagonist of Alphonse de Lamartine's novel Graziella)
  • 1861 The Death of Priam (Won the Prix de Rome), École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris
  • 1861 Diva Vittoria Colonna
  • 1863 Boy Painting a Tragic Mask
  • 1864 Roman Charity
  • 1865 Portrait d'Antonio, modèle italien
  • 1866 Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi
  • 1868 Reclining Nude, Musée d'Orsay
  • 1869 Le Réveil de Diane
  • 1869 Portrait of Alexandre Dumas
  • 1870 La Vérité (The Truth) (1870), oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The painting is contemporary with the first small scale model made by Lefebvre's fellow-Frenchman Frédéric Bartholdi for what became the Statue of Liberty, striking a similar pose, though fully clothed.[2]
  • 1870s Jeune femme à la mandoline (Girl with a Mandolin)
  • 1870 Portrait du Prince Impérial
  • 1872 Pandora
  • 1872 La Cigale, National Gallery of Victoria
  • 1874 Odalisque
  • 1874 Slave Carrying Fruit (Ghent Museum)
  • 1874 Portrait of Eugène Louis Napoléon Bonaparte
  • 1875 Chloé, Young and Jackson Hotel, Melbourne
  • 1876 Mary Magdalene in the Cave, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
  • 1877 Pandora
  • 1878 Mignon, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • 1878 Graziella, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • 1879 Diana
  • 1879 Diana Surprised, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
  • 1880 Portrait of Julia Foster Ward
  • 1880 Housemaid, Pera Museum, Istanbul
  • 1881 La Fiametta from Giovanni Boccaccio
  • 1882 Pandora (II)
  • 1882 Japonaise (A Japanese woman)
  • 1883 Psyche
  • 1884 The Feathered Fan
  • 1884 Portrait of Edna Barger, private collection
  • 1890 Lady Godiva
  • 1890 Ophelia
  • 1892 A Daughter of Eve
  • 1892 Judith
  • 1896 Portrait of a Lady (II)
  • 1898 Amor beim Schärfen seiner Pfeile (Love sharpening its arrows)
  • 1901 Alexander Agassiz
  • 1901 Yvonne (formerly Musée du Luxembourg), Portrait of Lefebvre's daughter

Undated works

  • Clémence Isaure
  • La Fiancée
  • Woman with an Orange
  • Nymph with Morning Glory Flowers
  • Fleurs des Champs
  • L'Amour Blessé (Wounded Love)
  • Mediterranean Beauty
  • Portrait of a Lady
  • Portrait of a Woman
  • Young Woman with Morning Glories in Her Hair

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Art Renewal Center Museum™ Artist Information for Jules Joseph Lefebvre". Art Renewal Center.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "A One-Picture Painter". Evening News (13, 776). New South Wales, Australia. 3 August 1911. p. 6. Retrieved 6 March 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. 1 2 Collier, Peter; Lethbridge, Robert (1994). Artistic Relations: Literature and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-century France. London: Yale University Press. p. 50. ISBN 9780300060096.
  4. 1 2 Oxford Art Online, "Lefebvre, Jules"
  5. ↑ Baron Ernst Friedrich von Liphart, Late 19th Century – 19th Century – Russian Artists – Biographies – RusArtNet.com
  6. ↑ Waller, S. (ed.), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914: Strangers in Paradise, Routledge, 2017, p. 119
  7. ↑ Kathleen Luhrs, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980: "... on to Paris and studied for a year at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre."
  8. ↑ Carrie Rebora Barratt; Lori Zabar (1 January 2010). American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 244–. ISBN 978-1-58839-357-9.
  9. ↑ "Benoit-Lévy, Jules (1866–1925), Painter, draughtsman, illustrator", Benezit Dictionary of Artists
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