Lot n° 29
Estimation :
2000 - 3000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 6 656EUR
Claudius Marcel POPELIN (Paris, 1825 - 1892)
Doctor... - Lot 29 - Ader
Claudius Marcel POPELIN (Paris, 1825 - 1892)
Doctor Émile Blanche, 1891
Enamel painted in gold cameo and grisaille on a domed oval copper plate depicting a bust, surrounded by four spandrels enameled on silver with stylized flowers and the monogram "EB".
Monogrammed in the enamel to the left of the profile: "CP
Signed and dated on the back on the counter-enamel: "Le docteur Blanche / par / Claudius Popelin / fév. 1891
Enamel plate set in the frame with the inscription "Doctoris AEmilii Blanche effigiem / filio ejus Jacopo dicavit amicus / Claudius Popelin pictor. M.DCCCXCI."
Dated and localized on the back of the frame: " 1891 / PARIS. "
Size : 15,4 x 12,4 cm (55 x 52,2 cm with the black molded wood frame in Dutch style and its enamelled dedication cartel)
Provenance:
Given by the artist to Jacques-Émile Blanche, son of the model, then by the latter to his father Dr. Émile Blanche (1820-1893), and later descended from Alfred Blanche (1823-1892), polytechnician and engineer, younger brother of Dr. Blanche.
Exhibition:
Exhibition of the works of Claudius Popelin, Paris, Union centrale des arts décoratifs, 1893, #19.
Bibliography:
L. Falize, " Claudius Popelin et la renaissance des émaux peints ", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1893, 10, p. 74.
Related works:
- Claudius Popelin, Portrait of Prince Louis Napoleon, 1890, gold cameo painted enamel on copper, giltwood and painted enamel on copper frame, H.: 19.0; W.: 16.0 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, inv. OAO 1666.
- Claudius Popelin, Portrait of Prince Napoleon, 1891, enamel painted in gold camaïeu on copper, giltwood and enamel frame painted on copper, H. 19.0; W. 16.0 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, inv. OAO 1665.
- Claudius Popelin, Portrait of Count Vincent Benedetti (1817-1900), 1890, enamel, gilded wood frame, H.: 41.0; W.: 34.0 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, inv. OAO 1783.
Claudius Popelin began his training as a student of the neo-classical painter François-Édouard Picot, as did Frédéric de Courcy, and completed his training in the studio of Ary Scheffer (1795-1858). As early as 1860, his taste for Renaissance art led him to imitate Italian majolica, then to enamels. On the recommendation of the director of the Manufacture de Sèvres, he was directed by Alfred Meyer who taught him enameling techniques. For years he devoted himself to research in this field to the point that he became one of the major personalities of the second half of the 19th century. He created painted enamels, either on their own or used in decorative art, which met with great success: orders for personalities such as the Duke of Aumale and Louis II of Bavaria multiplied. Close to the members of the Court, guest of the salons of the Second Empire, friend of Flaubert and Théophile Gauthier, Popelin was also a scholar and a bibliophile who left a substantial literary work. It includes collections of poetry, translations and theoretical works on the arts of fire, L'Art de l'émail published in 1868 becoming the reference work on the subject. In the last years of his life, he devoted himself to a "Pantheon", according to his own words, of contemporary celebrities he met at the home of Princess Mathilde, whose lover he had become for a time.
This medallion made in 1891 representing the famous doctor Émile Blanche, father of his friend the painter Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942) is one of the examples. Like the portraits of Prince Napoleon and Count Vincent Benedetti in the Musée d'Orsay, this portrait is done in grisaille d'or, a remarkable technique that he had been using since 1868. He explains the execution in his book L'Art de l'émail (p.40-41): "To execute this work in grisaille, no more gold or silver straw, no more colored enamels crushed in advance, no more spatula; two or three points, one of which is very fine, a thin brush and gold; for gold is the obligatory accompaniment of all our work, of which it is the joyful note, the sunshine". It is also known that he used photography, via a rather complex transfer technique, as the basis for his work as a gold grisaille enameller. The result, fabulous, offers a "heroic" image of his model thanks to the preciousness of the material and its frame.
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