Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Small French Paintings by Unknown Artists (Louvre)

Anonymous French Artist
Eye of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
surrounded by Forget-Me-Nots

ca. 1810
miniature mounted on snuff box
Musée du Louvre

"Born in 1786 at Douai in Flanders, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore has been forgotten, rediscovered, and forgotten again. Shortly after her death, Jules Janin remarked that she had already been forgotten. "Forgotten by whom, I ask you?" said Baudelaire. "By those who, feeling nothing, remember nothing."  He said, "No poet was ever more natural; none was ever less artificial. No one has been able to imitate that charm, for it is entirely original and naive."  

"Desbordes-Valmore would look back at her childhood as idyllic. The people were attached to simple things and led uneventful lives. There were four children. Their father painted cabinets and made church ornaments. But Joseph Desbordes lost his clientele in the Revolution – the Terror came even to Douai and the church porch was destroyed. The Desbordes family was reduced to poverty."

– from a profile by Louis Simpson in The New Criterion (1995) 

Anonymous French Artist
Interior of a School for Girls
early 19th century
gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Interior of a School for Girls (Drawing Class)
early 19th century
gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Cascade at St Cloud
19th century
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Baptism of Christ
18th century
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist after Antoine Coypel
Cupid and Psyche
18th century
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Seated Nude
ca. 1830
watercolor on ivory
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Scene in a Park
18th century
gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of a Young Woman
18th century
watercolor on ivory
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of Louis XV as a Child
ca. 1715
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Young Woman with Fruit
ca. 1750
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Roman Emperor giving Audience
18th century
gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
The Resurrection
17th century
gouache on vellum
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist after Julie Le Brun
Venus and Cupid
18th century
enamel miniature
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Perseus beheading Medusa
17th century
watercolor on ivory
Musée du Louvre