PD Image: In the Waves (1889, aka ‘Dans les vagues, ou Ondine’, ‘En les onades, o Ondina’, and ‘Undine’), oil on canvas painting by French painter and writer Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), dimensions 92 x 72 cm (36.22 in x 28.35 in), located at The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
PD Image: The Large Bathers (1898-1905), oil on canvas painting by French painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906); dimensions 210.5 cm x 250.8 cm (82 7/8 in x 98 3/4 in) located at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, United States.
The Large Bathers (Deutsch: Die großen Badenden, Français: Les Grandes Baigneuses) is often considered the masterpiece of Paul Cézanne. First exhibited in 1906, this painting is the largest of a series of paintings with the same title ‘The Bathers’ by Cézanne. The others are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Gallery, London.
This painting is generally referred to as ‘The Large Bathers’ to distinguish it from other paintings of Cezanne’s ‘Bathers’ series and it is considered one of the masterpieces of Modern Art. The painting was featured in ‘100 Great Paintings’ a television series created by Edwin Mullins for BBC Two in 1980.
Because of the technique employed in painting landscapes and still lives, The Large Bathers often compared to the works of Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
PD Image: ‘On the Sand, Valencia Beach’ (1908), Oil on canvas painting by Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923).
Image: La Baigneuse (1864 painting, aka The Bather) by Jules Laurens
Jules Auguste Joseph Laurens (1825-1901) is a French painter and lithographer, known for his Orientalist paintings, portraits of peasants and landscape. Born in a family of five children, at the age of twelve Jules joined his older brother, Jean Joseph Bonaventure Laurens, a French artist based in Montpellier.
From 1846 to 1849 he traveled as a draftsman to Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Persia, as part of a scientific mission led by the geographer Xavier Hommaire de Hell. Despite the failure of the mission because of the death Hommaire Hell in Isfahan, Jules brought back hundreds of sketches (historical monuments and daily life of the inhabitants of these regions), drawings and watercolors that would serve his artistic activity.
From 1850-1880 he worked in Paris and regularly participated in the Salon and other exhibitions, and received orders for work, including that of Madame Hommaire de Hell, after she read the notes of her late husband.
In 1880 he published a biography of his brother, and reflected upon the art and related matters of the times, and wrote on the important people he met, such as Victor Hugo, Ingres, Gustave Dore, etc.
He contributed greatly to the development of the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine and Museums of Carpentras. As an avid collector, he donated to the institution many notable works of contemporary artists such as Victor Hugo, Ingres, Auguste Bonheur, Eugene Ciceri, Gustave Dore, etc.
‘Young bather playing with his dog’ (Jeune baigneur jouant avec son chien), marble sculpture by French sculptor Antoine Laurent Dantan, also known as Dantan the Elder (1798-1878), made in Rome in 1833 and exhibited at the Salon of 1835, dimensions: height 1.05 m (3 ft. 5 ¼ in.), width 59 cm (23 in.), depth 58 cm (22 ¾ in.), purchased in 1835, located at Department of Sculptures, Richelieu, ground floor, room 32, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.
Image: In the water (Dans l’Eau), oil on cradled panel painting by Italian painter Eugene de Blaas aka Eugen von Blaas (1843-1932), size 78.4 cm x 44.5 cm (30.87” x 17.52”) from private collection, signed and dated bottom left as ‘Eugen von Blaas 1914’.
Diana (La Baigneuse) the 1778 marble sculpture by French artist Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain (1710-1795), 1.70 m (5 feet 6 ¾ in) tall, located at the Department of Sculptures, Richelieu, lower ground floor, Cour Puget, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.
Image: Summer Seas, oil painting by Herbert James Draper (1863-1920)
Photo: Jeune baigneuse (1902), bronze statuette by French sculptor Paul Paulin
French sculptor Paul Paulin (1852-1937), born in Chamaliers, France on July 13th 1852, was a dentist by profession but he was a great admirer of arts. He modeled and cast in bronze sculptures of many famous French artists and notables of his time, including Renoir, Degas, Monet, and Queen Victoria of England.
Photo: Baigneuse, sculpture by French sculptor Emile Joseph Carlier (1849-1927).
Photo: Baigneuse by French sculptor Alfred Boucher (1850-1934), currently in Dubois-Boucher Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine, France.
