Compassion (1897)

William Bouguereau: Compassion

Esther Before Ahasuerus (1894)

Félix-Joseph Barrias: Esther Before Ahasuerus

Exodus (1893)

Alfred Roll: Exodus

Judith (1892)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Judith

Salome (1889)

Léon Herbo: Salome

Christ and the Woman of Samaria (1887)

Jean Raymond Hippolyte Lazerges: Christ and the Woman of Samaria

Judith (1887)

Charles Landelle: Judith

Judith by Charles Landelle, one of the most successful French artists of his age, was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1887. It is uncertain when the painting entered the Russell-Cotes collection. However, as an old photograph testifies, Sir Merton Russell-Cotes must have held the work in high esteem as he hung it in a prominent position in the entrance hall to his home East Cliff Hall. In keeping with Russell-Cotes' taste, this exotic painting's subject aptly combines two meanings. While Judith was widely regarded as a symbol of womanly virtue, from the Renaissance (a period Landelle was particularly interested in) Judith also came to be regarded as an allegory of man's misfortunes at the hands of scheming woman. In this painting, as an early curator of the museum describes her: Judith is represented as a magnificent woman standing like a pillar, fierce as a panther; with eyes dark and penetrating, beautiful yet cruel in expression. Her story is drawn from the Old Testament apocryphal book, Judith, in which she is described as rich Jewish widow, who in an act of selfless patriotism saved her city of Bethulia, which was under siege by the Assyrian army. By posing as a turn-coat, dressed so as to catch the eye of any man, Judith gained the confidence of the enemy General Holofernes, who after a banquet in her honor planned to seduce her. However, being overcome by alcohol he collapsed on his bed, vulnerable to his fate. Landelle represents Judith drawing back the bed's curtain and clasping the sword with which she smote him twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head. [VADS]

Rebecca and Eliezer (1883)

Alexandre Cabanel: Rebecca and Eliezer

The Virgin, the Infant Jesus, and Saint John the Baptist (1881)

William Bouguereau: The Virgin, 

the Infant Jesus, and Saint John the Baptist

Cain Flying Before Jehovah's Curse (1880)

Fernand Cormon: Cain Flying Before Jehovah's Curse

This painting illustrates the miserable destiny of Cain, the elder son of Adam and Eve, who after the murder of his younger brother Abel was condemned to perpetual wandering. A haggard Cain is doggedly leading his tribe. On the wooden stretcher carried by his sons sits a bewildered woman with her dazed children. Chunks of bleeding meat are hung on the stretcher. Other men, the hunters, are trudging alongside. One is carrying a young woman in his arms and stray dogs bring up the rear. Fear of Jehovah's sentence is written on every face.

Cormon has lengthened the shadows as if the light of truth were pursuing the guilty through the bleak plain. He uses earthy colours and vigorous brushstrokes, plastered like Courbet's. The artist insisted on anatomical accuracy and had live models pose in his studio for each figure.

As well as a Biblical story and a grandiloquent epic, the work is an anthropological reconstruction. It introduces a new field—prehistory—at a time when Palaeolithic rock paintings were just being discovered. Lacking documents, Cormon speculates on life in those remote times, on barbarians struggling to survive, going barefoot with tangled hair and coarse skin. As a subtitle, he quotes the opening lines of Conscience, a poem by Victor Hugo's from La Légende des siècles (1859):

"When with his children clothed in animal skins
Dishevelled, livid, buffeted by the storms
Cain fled from Jehovah,
In the fading light, the grim man came
To the foot of a mountain in a vast plain..."
[Musée d’Orsay]

The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880)

William Bouguereau: The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1880)

Luc Olivier Merson: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Emptiness resounds throughout Luc Olivier Merson’s oil painting Le Repos en Egypte. A desert vastness stretches to the horizon; the night sky fills the immensity of the horizontal picture plane. Positioned not centrally but almost to the very left of the canvas, the sphinx amplifies the sense of desolation which is iterated by the sand-swamped pedestal on the stone plateau.

In the depths of the desert night, everyone is sleeping. Between the paws of the sphinx lies a veiled woman, a child nestling in her arms. At her feet is a man in slumber - wrapped in blankets, spread out on the sand. Even the smoke from the extinguished fire rises sleepily upwards like a final breath, while the donkey’s pose is one of languor - one hind leg is slightly bent, and his head is low. The saddle rests on the ground, and the long day’s journey is over. The Holy Family has found a place to rest on its journey into Egypt. [Liesbeth Grotenhuis, “Lying in the arms…: the origins and reception of Luc Olivier Merson’s ‘The rest on the flight to Egypt’]

The Good Samaritan (1880)

Aimé-Nicolas Morot: The Good Samaritan

Born into a modest, actively Republican family, Aimé Morot pursued an exemplary career after receiving an academic training in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1873, he used his stay at the Medici Villa as an opportunity to explore the Roman countryside on horseback.

On his return from his period of residency in Rome, the young Morot drew inspiration from the Gospel according to Luke to paint his Good Samaritan. The painting was exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Français, where he was awarded the medal of honor by his peers.

Heavily influenced by Spanish art of the 17th century, Morot treated the parable of the Samaritan helping the wounded man with grave realism. His vigorous style found favor with contemporary critics who paid tribute to the virtuosity of this fine painting. Marie Bashkirtseff wrote enthusiastically in her diary: “This is the painting which has given me the most complete pleasure in my entire life. Nothing jars, everything is simple, true and good”.

Painted initially in a large format, the work was reduced on all four sides by the painter in order to refocus the composition on the two men depicted life-size. An enthusiast of animal subjects, Morot adds a moving dimension to the figure of the donkey laboring under its burden. [Petit Palais]

Mary Magdalen in the Grotto (1876)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Mary Magdalen in the Grotto

Alluding to her sensuality in more striking and provocative images, the works of artists of the nineteenth century portrayed Mary Magdalene as “the woman who loved much.” After centuries of character transformations and questionable depictions, she is finally and totally physically and spiritually exposed. In Mary Magdalene in the Grotto by Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Mary is at the cave, her nude body lying at the site where Jesus had lain. A French classical figure painter whose artistic specialty is female nudes and beautiful women, Lefebvre’s nude Magdalene is refined and reflects the style of Realism as characterized by the accurate, detailed and unembellished depiction of nature. This depiction captures the essence of her emotions. This extremely erotic presentation of the Magdalene demands immediate empathy from the viewer while the awe of her beauty and sensuous pose grabs our attention. Lefebvre seems to avoid contemporary social conditions of pornography and prostitution widespread in this period in Europe. According to Haskins, he conforms to the conventions of art in the physicality of her body on the picture plane, “rendering acceptable what would otherwise have scandalized Victorian prudery.” Haskins further notes that in “this almost photographic image, the Magdalene writhes in her anguish” and offers “her entirely naked body to the spectator’s delectation.” Her raised left leg, suggests Haskins, while concealing her genital area, “invites erotic speculation.” In his Mary Magdalene in the Grotto, Lefebvfre depicted a “sensuous, supine nude Magdalene…she is in a world beyond the mind.” [Lester p. 262] [Buthaina I. Zanayed, The Visual Representation of Mary Magdalene in Art: From Penitent Saint to Propagator of the Faith, M.A. Thesis, University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2009]

Resources cited in this excerpt:
1) Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor.
2) Lester, The Everything Mary Magdalene Book: The Life and Legacy of Jesus’ Most Misunderstood Disciple.

Susannah at her Bath (1874)

Hugues Merle: Susannah at her Bath

A student of Leon Cogniet, Hugues Merle first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1847 and continued to do so annually until 1880. He was twice awarded the second class medal in 1861 and 1863, and he was made a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 1866. Merle was often compared by his contemporaries to the most famous academic artist of the time, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and it was written at the time that the artist 'became a considerable rival to Bouguereau in subject and treatment' (C. H. Stranahan, A History of French Painting from its Earliest to its Latest Practice, New York, 1917, p. 398). Like Bouguereau, Merle was extremely popular among American collectors at the end of the 19th Century and canvases by the artist graced the collections of Robert Sterling Clark and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Susannah at her Bath is a superb example of Merle's complete mastery of the Academic technique. Executed on a large scale, and surely a Salon entry, this painting was executed by the artist at the height of his career. Precise draughtsmanship and a close study of the human anatomy were considered the foundations of the Academic education and an artist's reputation and career were predicated on his ability to accurately and naturally depict the human form and expression. Choices of subject were clearly important, and in Susannah at her Bath Merle moves away from his usual subject matter of mothers and children and has taken on a subject more monumental and serious. His depiction of Susannah, at the moment that she becomes aware that she is not alone as she rises out of the water of her bath, is a tour-de-force of technique and expression. The young woman wears an expression of anguish and turns her body away from the old men hiding within the trees, trying vainly to cover herself with her chemise. The whiteness of her flesh is offset by the vibrant rose of her dress which hangs from a tree branch. Her golden hair cascades down her back and is painted with multiple layers of the finest glazes. Merle's handling and separation of the textures of female flesh, the linen chemise, the silken robe and the delicacy of Susannah's hands place him squarely in the company of Bouguereau and Munier at the forefront of the proponents of the Academic tradition at the end of the 19th Century. [Christie’s]

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Paradise (1867)

Alexandre Cabanel: Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Paradise

The Holy Family (1863)

William Bouguereau: Sainte Famille [The Holy Family]

Shepherds, Guided by a Star, Go to Bethlehem (1863)

Octave Penguilly-L'Haridon: Shepherds, Guided by a Star, Go to Bethlehem

Tobias Bids Farewell to his Father (1860)

William Bouguereau: Tobias Bids Farewell to his Father

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was the 19th century Academic painter par excellence. In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the academic art community, and simultaneously he was reviled by the avant-garde. To many, he epitomized taste and refinement, and a respect for tradition. To others, he was a competent technician stuck in the past.

Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects, both pagan and Christian, with a concentration on the naked female human body. The idealized world of his paintings brought to life goddesses, nymphs, bathers, shepherdesses, and madonnas in a way that appealed to wealthy art patrons of the era. [Wikipedia]

The Art Renewal Center is a major exponent of Bouguereau and his style; they have a rather hagiographic bio of him.

Susanna and the Elders (1856)

Théodore Chassériau: Susanna and the Elders