Isidore PILS (Paris 1813 - Douarnenez 1875)
Profile of a Dancer
Original canvas (no. 6 on the reverse)
32.5 x 27.5 cm
Wax stamp of the studio sale on the reverse
Signed with the stamp on the lower left and sale label, no. 67
Provenance:
Artist's studio; his sale after his death, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, March 20, 1876, no. 67
Exhibition :
Exposition des Œuvres de Pils, Paris, École de Beaux-Arts, 1876, p. 73, n° 497, 498 or 500 (descriptions not precise enough - dancer, study for the Opera - and without indication of dimension).
As the architect of the Paris Opera, Charles Garnier asked the winners of the Prix de Rome for painting to decorate the main rooms of the monument he was building. He commissioned Isidore Pils to paint the four voussoirs of the ceiling of the Grand Staircase, which he worked on from 1870 until his death in 1875. Our painting is a study for a figure in profile in The Charm of Music (South panel), from behind and in the center of the group of three women, a group that takes up the classical archetype of the three Graces. They represent music to the right of Orpheus.
Pils took dancers from the Opera as models, as the descriptions of the time indicate.
However, this beautiful profile of a woman can also be seen as an independent work.
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