Antoine-Auguste THIVET (Paris, 1856 - 1927) A... Lot 130

Antoine-Auguste THIVET (Paris, 1856 - 1927) A Martyrdom Canvas Signed lower left: "A. Thivet." 59,7 x 82 cm Exhibition: Paris, Salon de la Société des artistes français, 1906, no. 1605. Bibliography: L. Károly, Külföldi krónika, in. Művészet, Budapest, 1907, no. II, p. 135. The son of Etienne Thivet (1826-1893), a painter from Beaune, Antoine-Auguste entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1876 where he studied under Gérôme and Aimé Millet. He moved from orientalism to landscape, from scenes of Parisian life to still lifes, while passing through portraiture. His reputation rests above all on his painting of nudes. As a painter of women, everything is a pretext for their representation in the simplest form, whether they are nymphs, deities, witches or peasant women. Here Thivet is strictly faithful to the text from which he draws his inspiration: Une Martyre. In this long poem, which has no less than sixty verses published in 1857, Baudelaire describes a contemporary sadistic crime, which is surprisingly not included among the condemned pieces of the Flowers of Evil, since it almost refers to necrophilic practices. Like himself, Thivet finds in this literary source a pretext to paint a female nude, but unlike the rest of his production, light and carefree, the work he creates here is voluntarily shocking, producing in the viewer a feeling oscillating between fright and delight. "A Martyrdom On the bed. The naked trunk, without scruples spread out. In the most complete abandonment, The secret splendor and fatal beauty Which nature gave her." (Charles Beaudelaire: Les Fleurs du mal.)`