Marie Eléonore GODEFROID (1778-1849) Shéhérazade... Lot 10

Marie Eléonore GODEFROID (1778-1849) Shéhérazade et Chahriar Oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm Signed lower left "Godefroid". Exhibition: Most probably Salon of 1842, n°823. A student and collaborator of Baron Gérard, Marie Eléonore Godefroid was an accomplished artist whose talent was recognized both by the high society of the time and by the artistic world. She exhibited at the Salon as early as 1800 and the bulk of her work consists of a large number of portraits, including the portrait of Abd el-Kader, which is kept at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. Our painting is unusual in her work since it addresses an orientalizing theme, taken from the Persian-born story The Book of a Thousand and One Nights, with the representation of Sheherazade and the Sultan Shahriar. Our painting is most probably the one exhibited at the Salon of 1842, to which it corresponds both in subject and in size, mentioned with a frame in the register of works at the Salon of that year.