Jules Joseph Lefebvre

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Jules Joseph Lefebvre
A photo of Lefebvre taken no later than 1903
A photo of Lefebvre taken no later than 1903
Born(1836-03-14)14 March 1836[1]
Died24 February 1911(1911-02-24) (aged 74)[1][2]
Paris, France
Other namesJules Lefebvre[2]
OccupationPainter
Jules Lefebvre in his studio

Jules Joseph Lefebvre (French: [ʒyl ʒɔzɛf ləfɛvʁ]; 14 March 1836 – 24 February 1911) was a French painter, educator and theorist.

Early life

Lefebvre was born in Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, on 14 March 1836.[1] He entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet.

Career

He won the prestigious Prix de Rome with his The Death of Priam in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. Many of his paintings are single figures of beautiful women. Among the portraits of his considered the best were those of M. L. Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874).[3] In 1891, he became a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

He was professor at the Académie Julian in Paris.[4] Lefebvre is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. Among his famous students were Fernand Khnopff, Kenyon Cox,[3] Félix Vallotton, Ernst Friedrich von Liphart,[5] Georges Rochegrosse,[6] the Scottish-born landscape painter William Hart, Walter Lofthouse Dean, and Edmund C. Tarbell, who became an American Impressionist painter.[7] Another pupil was the miniaturist Alice Beckington[8] as was Laura Leroux-Revault, the daugher of his friend Louis Hector Leroux.[9] Jules Benoit-Lévy entered his workshop at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.[10]

Grave of Jules Lefebvre, Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.
The Sorrow of Mary Magdalene

Lefebvre died in Paris on 24 February 1911 and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery with a bas-relief depiction of his painting La Vérité on his grave.[1][2]

Significant milestones

Selected works

  • Oil painting of a woman from the torso up, facing left. She wears a golden laurel wreath in her long, flowing hair, and holds a scroll and sprig of yellow flowers in her left hand.
    Clémence Isaure
  • Diana Surprised, 1879
    Diana Surprised, 1879
  • Oil painting of a naked woman on a horse being lead by a woman in servant's clothing along a street lined with tall, Tudor style buildings. The street is otherwise deserted, except for three doves which fly near the women.
  • Oil painting of a naked woman standing, facing the viewers. Her right hand extends above her head, holding a golden mirror, her left hand seems to be holding a stick or staff, and her right leg is bent, shifting weight onto her left hip.
  • Oil painting of a woman with long hair and a puffy white dress looking pensively at the viewers. She wears a golden laurel wreath and a gold pendant with a long chain around her neck.
    Vittoria Colonna, 1861
  • Odalisque, 1874
    Odalisque, 1874
  • Psyché, 1883.
    Psyché, 1883.
  • Sleeping vestal virgin, 1902
    Sleeping vestal virgin, 1902
  • Sappho 1884
    Sappho 1884

Undated works

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Art Renewal Center Museum™ Artist Information for Jules Joseph Lefebvre". Art Renewal Center.
  2. ^ a b c "A One-Picture Painter". Evening News. No. 13, 776. New South Wales, Australia. 3 August 1911. p. 6. Retrieved 6 March 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ a b Oxford Art Online, "Lefebvre, Jules"
  4. ^ a b Collier, Peter; Lethbridge, Robert (1994). Artistic Relations: Literature and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-century France. London: Yale University Press. p. 50. ISBN 9780300060096.
  5. ^ Baron Ernst Friedrich von Liphart, Late 19th Century – 19th Century – Russian Artists – Biographies – RusArtNet.com
  6. ^ Waller, S. (ed.), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914: Strangers in Paradise, Routledge, 2017, p. 119
  7. ^ Kathleen Luhrs, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980: "... on to Paris and studied for a year at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre."
  8. ^ Carrie Rebora Barratt; Lori Zabar (1 January 2010). American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 244–. ISBN 978-1-58839-357-9.
  9. ^ "ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)". www.getty.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  10. ^ "Benoit-Lévy, Jules (1866–1925), Painter, draughtsman, illustrator" Archived 2019-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, Benezit Dictionary of Artists
  11. ^ Kovacs, Anna Zsófia (2015–2016). "L'Ondine de Jules Lefebvre : un nu académique français dans les collections du musée des Beaux-Arts". Bulletin du musée hongrois des Beaux-Arts. 120–121: 147–164.

External links