Ophelia (1900)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Ophelia

Watercolorist in the Louvre (1891)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Watercolorist in the Louvre

Madonna in a Trellis (1888)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Madonna in a Trellis

The Blessed Bread (ca. 1887)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: The Blessed Bread

Hamlet and the Gravediggers (1884)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Hamlet and the Gravediggers

Among the most creative students of the renowned academician Jean-Léon Gérôme, Dagnan-Bouveret staunchly maintained the academic tradition while modernizing it with contemporary themes and organizing his compositions with photographic techniques. Officially recognized and honored, Dagnan-Bouveret was named Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1891 and member of the Institut de France in 1900. Hamlet and the Gravediggers depicts the famous passage from Act V, Scene I of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, when the Danish prince discovers the skull of Yorick the Jester and contemplates the fate of all mankind. Dagnan-Bouveret’s friends, the artists Gustave Courtois and Karl von Steffen, posed for the figures of Horatio and Hamlet and the artist himself appears at the lower right, photographically cropped and facing the action. Painted in the lighthearted and somewhat satiric “troubadour style,” Dagnan-Bouveret’s naturalist tendencies are most clearly seen in the ragged figures of the gravediggers, depicted with his characteristic exactitude. First exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884, it was popularized through reproductions published the same year. The artist gave Hamlet and the Gravediggers to his teacher, Gérôme, and a subsequent owner, the American banker George F. Baker donated it to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Dahesh Museum of Art]

Petit Concert (1883)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Petit Concert

Blessing of the Young Couple Before Marriage (1880-81)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Blessing of the Young Couple Before Marriage

Sulking, Gustave Courtois in his Studio (1880)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Sulking, Gustave Courtois in his Studio

In 1880, when Dagnan-Bouveret completed this painting, an important, captivating, and until now completely unknown work characteristic of the artists early genre manner, was establishing himself as a recorder of Parisian scenes populated by a broad range of Parisian types. Whether in his The Bird Charmer in the Tuileries Garden, 1879 (brown ink drawing, Chrysler Museum of Art) or in the painting of an exhausted washerwoman resting along the Quai near the Seine (The Laundress, 1880) Dagnan-Bouveret was moving away from traditional academic themes to embrace contemporary life made popular by the writings of Alphonse Daudet and Emile Zola. Undoubtedly, Dagnan-Bouveret was also inspired by the discussions he was having with artistic colleagues from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, including his long-time friend, the romantic academic painter Gustave Courtois.

In the painting we see a well-appointed atelier, with a bearskin rug on the floor, and a screen decorated with flowers. The elegantly dressed painter, holding his palette and mahl-stick, is relaxing on a sofa; at the other end of the sofa sits a young woman, dressed in black, who is separated from the artist both in actuality and in demeanor. Exactly what the relationship is between these two participants remains unclear. Although they don't seem to be communicating with one another, and they each exist in their own worlds, there is a distinct possibility that the scene represents a painter and his model or subject. There is also little or no doubt that the painter is Dagnan-Bouveret's friend Courtois in his own atelier resting during a posing session with his model. Another portrait of Courtois by Dagnan-Bouveret (1884) strongly suggests this. If Bouderie is the true title of the work it could it be that the woman is the one sulking because she is unhappy with her likeness. Another proof that the work is a portrait of Courtois is that the painting reflected in the large mirror, in the central part of the composition, closely recalls a work that Courtois was completing at this moment in time, Portrait of Mme Rochetaillie (1877). [Christie’s]

An Accident (1880)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: An Accident

After training with Alexandre Cabanel (1823-89) and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Dagnan-Bouveret turned from Classical themes to subjects drawn from everyday life. In this scene, a country doctor bandages a boy's injured hand, while his family looks on with varying expressions of concern. The artist witnessed an incident like this while traveling with a doctor friend in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France. When this painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1880, it established the artist's reputation as both a perceptive reporter of rural customs and a Realist who explored the psychological states of his subjects. [The Walters Art Museum]

Wedding at the Photographer's (1878-79)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: Wedding at the Photographer's

Wedding at the Photographer's is a valuable commentary on the new craze for portrait photographs, which promised to document individuals and formal family occasions for posterity with a degree of verisimilitude hitherto unimaginable. The scene is the inside of a photographer’s studio, where a young man and woman are being photographed in their wedding finery. The anecdotal interest of the work shifts from the couple to several humorous vignettes that occupy different sections of the composition. These include a young girl in blue dress watching poutingly what is occurring inside the studio and the photographer going about his work completely oblivious to everything around him. The painting, as was noted by contemporary critics, responded to the public’s interest in verisimilitude – as documented by its fascination with photography itself. The artist recorded objects in microscopic detail, for example, the mirror at at the left, in which there is a small calling card advertising the photographer and giving his address in Vesoul. This detail would have gone unnoticed except by those close to the artist. Even though Paris is given in the inscription as the place where the work was completed in 1878-79, we know from letters that the painter was spending more and more time in the Haute-Saone region near Vesoul, its capital.

Since Dagnan-Bouveret wrote about the painting in a letter to Anne-Marie in early 1879, it is also known that he researched the theme before beginning the composition. He actually visited the studio of a photographer in Paris and made a small study of the rooms (perhaps more than one), in order to explore the way in which the background could be integrated with his figures. He also had the Parisian photographer take his picture, which he eventually sent to his fiancée along with a photograph of his canvas Manon Lescant. When Wedding at the Photographer's was exhibited at the Salon, it was extremely well positioned and received many compliments. Yet the artist had a nagging sense of doubt about the picture, thinking it perhaps too clever; he was also troubled that the Salon had become too much of a showplace, where artists tried to outdo their peers. [Gabriel P. Weisberg, Against the Modern: Dagnan-Bouveret and the Transformation of the Academic Tradition, Dahesh Museum of Art, 2002, pp. 49-51]

The Little Savoyard (1877)

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: The Little Savoyard Eating in Front of an Entrance to a House