Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) - "Tragedia dell'arte," 1857 (copy)
Oil on board
Dimensions: 23 × 34 cm, 34 × 44 cm (with frame)
Signed p.d.: "Gerome" and "Huber" (author of the copy).
Painting in decorative gilt wooden frame.
The work after conservation.
The composition alludes to Gérôme's famous genre scene inspired by the world of commedia dell'arte: against a wintry, dim background of a park/alea we see a dramatic episode involving characters in theatrical costumes. On the left is a group of figures clustered around an injured person; on the right are two silhouettes moving away into the landscape. The contrast of the white of the snow and bright costumes with the intense red and green of the robes builds the tension of the scene and emphasizes its "theatrical" character. The work is an example of the 19th-century practice of making authorial or workshop copies after compositions by recognized masters, intended for circulation to collectors.
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
French painter, sculptor and educator, one of the leading figures of academism in the second half of the 19th century. Among other things, he taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, running an influential studio through which hundreds (and, in the long run, thousands) of students passed. He created historical, ancient and mythological scenes, as well as numerous orientalist compositions; his paintings were massively reproduced and he was one of the most recognizable artists of his era.
Huber (copyist painter, unspecified).
