Louise Abbema
The Flower Girl
circa 1890

Name: The Flower Girl
Brand: Louise Abbema
Price: 8957.97 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Louise Abbéma 1853–1927 Louise Abbéma (30 October 1853[1] – 10 July 1927) was a French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque. Abbéma was born in Étampes, Essonne Born into a wealthy aristocratic Parisian family with close ties to the city’s artistic community, She began painting in her early teens, and studied under such notables of the period as Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran. Portraits of actors and actresses at the Comédie Française dominated her early works until she made a name for herself at the Salon of 1876 with her portrayal of the “Divine Sarah.” Abbéma ultimately executed multiple portraits and received recognition for her work at age 23 a bronze medallion of Sarah Bernhardt, with whom she was a close friend and possibly lover. Like most women artists of the time, Abbéma focused mainly on portraiture and genre scenes (images of everyday life). Her high-society portraits executed with a light touch and rapid brushstrokes reveal the academic and Impressionist influences that shaped her style. Her sitters included French diplomats and other notable members of society. Abbéma developed a variety of techniques using oil paints, pastel, and watercolor, and worked on various supports, including fans. Abbéma received commissions for panels and murals which adorned the Paris Town Hall, the Paris Opera House, numerous theatres including the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, and the "Palace of the Colonial Governor" at Dakar, Senegal. Abbéma solidified her international reputation after exhibiting works, including two wall murals (on canvas), at the Women’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A bust of Sarah Bernhardt sculpted by Abbéma was also exhibited at the exposition. Abbéma specialized in oil portraits and watercolors, and many of her works showed the influence from Chinese and Japanese painters, as well as contemporary masters such as Édouard Manet. She frequently depicted flowers in her works. Among her best-known works are The Seasons, April Morning, Place de la Concorde, Among the Flowers, Winter, and portraits of actress Jeanne Samary, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, Ferdinand de Lesseps, and Charles Garnier. Abbéma was also an accomplished printmaker, sculptor, and designer, as well as a writer who made regular contributions to the journals Gazette des Beaux-Arts and L'Art. She also illustrated several books, including la mer, René Maizeroy. Among the many honors conferred upon Abbéma was Palme Academiques, 1887 and nomination as "Official Painter of the Third Republic." She was also awarded a bronze medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. In 1906 she was decorated as Chevalier of the Order of the Légion d'honneur. She continued to exhibit at the Salon until 1926 and died in Paris in 1927. At the end of the 20th century, as contributions by women to the arts in past centuries received more critical and historical attention, her works have been enjoying a renewed popularity. As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th-century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer "New Woman". Artists then, "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives," including Abbéma who created androgynous self-portraits to "link intellectual life through emphasis on ocularity”. Many other portraits included androgynously dressed women, and women participating in intellectual and other pastimes traditionally associated with men.

Creator:

Louise Abbema (1853 - 1927, French)

Creation Year:

circa 1890

Dimensions:

Height: 25 in (63.5 cm)Width: 22 in (55.88 cm)Depth: 3 in (7.62 cm)

Medium:

Oil

Movement & Style:

Impressionist

Period:

1890-1899

Condition:

The painting is framed in the original gold leaf frame. The painting is in very good with the canvas stamped on the reverse and the frame makers label also printed on the reverse.

Gallery Location:

St. Albans, GB

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU2469213332152

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