Jacques-Émile BLANCHE (1861-1942 )Portrait of Paul Hervieu, 1893Oil on canvas. Signed, dated and dedicated "to Paul Hervieu" lower right. 63 x 53 cmProvenance : Paul Hervieu Collection . By descent, then gift to the current owner. Exhibition: Portraits of Writers and Journalists of the Century (1793-1893), Galerie Georges Petit, Paris 1893, no. 483. Bibliography: Jane Roberts and Muriel Molines, Jacques-Émile Blanche, Catalogue raisonné online, www.jeblanche-catalogue.com/fr/, no. R.M.1351, reproduced . Novelist and playwright, Paul Hervieu is an emblematic figure of the French literary milieu of the late nineteenth century. He contributed to numerous literary journals and co-founded the publishing house La Librairie moderne. In 1900, he succeeded Édouard Pailleron in chair 12 of the Académie française. Our portrait echoes that of his friend Marcel Proust, painted a year earlier by the same Jacques-Émile Blanche.