Judith (1892)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Judith

Lady Godiva (1891)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Lady Godiva

Exhibited at the 1890 Salon (official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris), this immense (6.2 x 3.9m) oil painting dated 1891 portrays the story of Lady Godiva, a famous 11th century English princess. Married to Leofric, the Earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry, she begged her husband to relieve the townspeople of the oppressive taxes and tolls. He refused, unless she agree to ride through the town naked on horseback. Out of respect for their lady, it is said, the townspeople stayed indoors during her ride. Jules Lefebvre’s painting shows Lady Godiva during her ride through the deserted town. [Amiens]

Portrait of a Lady (1890)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Portrait of a Lady

Mignon (1886)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Mignon

The Servant (1880)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: The Servant

Morning Glory (1879)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Morning Glory

LeFèbvre was known for his allegorical portrayals of the female nude and the popularity of his paintings rivaled that of William Bouguereau. Most famous for his portraits and genre scenes, as well as his championing of the traditional cult of beauty, LeFèbvre's atelier at the Academie Julien, where William-Adolphe Bouguereau taught as well, attracted many of the finest young artists of the time, including the American Elizabeth Jane Gardner (who later married Bouguereau). LeFèbvre, who had honed his skills in Italy by copying works of the Italian Mannerist painter Andrea del Sarto, emphasized precise drawing skills in his teaching. One reviewer wrote in 1881, 'It is sufficient to just mention his name in order to immediately evoke the memory and the image of the thousand adorable creatures of which he is the young father... An unusually skilled draftsman, Jules LeFèbvre better than anyone else caresses, with a brush both delicate and sure, the undulating contour of the feminine form.'

As can be seen in the quality of the present picture, LeFèbvre's work is executed with a high degree of finish. True to his academic training, he was a superb draughtsman, and paid particular care to the rendering of figures. His familiarity and appreciation for the classics is evident here in the dress and the gesture of the figure, particularly the way in which she stands.

In Morning Glory, despite the mythical atmosphere and dress of the figure, LeFèbvre has created a sense of realism with the figure's expression and specific sense of youth. Her ripe age - she is just recently a woman - and the impressive presence granted her by the size of the canvas suggest an incredible potential power in her position at the very beginning of her grown-up life, one which the intensity of her gaze suggests she is just beginning to recognize and harness. [Christie’s]

Diana the Huntress (1879)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Diana the Huntress

Graziella (1878)

Jules-Joseph Lefebvre: Graziella

Winner of the coveted Prix de Rome in 1861, Lefebvre fulfilled his early promise both as a painter of meticulously executed portraits and nudes and as a teacher: during his long career, he earned three Salon medals, was appointed to the French Academy of Fine Arts, and attained the rank of Commander in the Legion of Honor.

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe commissioned Graziella in 1878. It depicts the heroine of Alphonse de Lamartine’s popular tale of the same name, which was first published in 1849. The story revolves around the narrator’s love for the beautiful daughter of a Neapolitan fisherman. Lefebvre portrayed her mending a fishing net as she gazes over her shoulder toward the distant simmering profile of Mount Vesuvius. [Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Mary Magdalen in the Grotto (1876)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Mary Magdalen in the Grotto

Alluding to her sensuality in more striking and provocative images, the works of artists of the nineteenth century portrayed Mary Magdalene as “the woman who loved much.” After centuries of character transformations and questionable depictions, she is finally and totally physically and spiritually exposed. In Mary Magdalene in the Grotto by Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Mary is at the cave, her nude body lying at the site where Jesus had lain. A French classical figure painter whose artistic specialty is female nudes and beautiful women, Lefebvre’s nude Magdalene is refined and reflects the style of Realism as characterized by the accurate, detailed and unembellished depiction of nature. This depiction captures the essence of her emotions. This extremely erotic presentation of the Magdalene demands immediate empathy from the viewer while the awe of her beauty and sensuous pose grabs our attention. Lefebvre seems to avoid contemporary social conditions of pornography and prostitution widespread in this period in Europe. According to Haskins, he conforms to the conventions of art in the physicality of her body on the picture plane, “rendering acceptable what would otherwise have scandalized Victorian prudery.” Haskins further notes that in “this almost photographic image, the Magdalene writhes in her anguish” and offers “her entirely naked body to the spectator’s delectation.” Her raised left leg, suggests Haskins, while concealing her genital area, “invites erotic speculation.” In his Mary Magdalene in the Grotto, Lefebvfre depicted a “sensuous, supine nude Magdalene…she is in a world beyond the mind.” [Lester p. 262] [Buthaina I. Zanayed, The Visual Representation of Mary Magdalene in Art: From Penitent Saint to Propagator of the Faith, M.A. Thesis, University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2009]

Resources cited in this excerpt:
1) Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor.
2) Lester, The Everything Mary Magdalene Book: The Life and Legacy of Jesus’ Most Misunderstood Disciple.

Chloé (1875)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Chloé

The Young and Jackson pub in Melbourne, Australia is well known for the nude painting Chloé, painted by French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre in 1875. The painting is oil on canvas measuring a life size 260 x 139 cm. It was purchased for 850 guineas by Dr Thomas Fitzgerald of Lonsdale Street in Melbourne. After being hung in the National Gallery of Victoria for three weeks in 1883, it was withdrawn from exhibition because of the uproar created especially by the Presbyterian Assembly. It was bought for the Young and Jackson Hotel in 1908 for 800 pounds, and was damaged in 1943 by an American serviceman who threw a glass of beer at it. [Wikipedia]

And here is the sad story of the young woman who served as the model for this painting.

Truth (1870)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: Truth

The Death of Priam (1861)

Jules Joseph Lefebvre: The Death of Priam

This painting was Lefebvre’s winning entry to the Prix de Rome in 1861. It shows the death of Priam, as described by Virgil in the Aeneid:

     Then Pyrrhus thus: “Go thou from me to fate,
     And to my father my foul deeds relate.
     Now die!” With that he dragg’d the trembling sire,
     Slidd’ring thro’ clotter’d blood and holy mire,
     (The mingled paste his murder’d son had made,)
     Haul’d from beneath the violated shade,
     And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.
     His right hand held his bloody falchion bare,
     His left he twisted in his hoary hair;
     Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found:
     The lukewarm blood came rushing thro’ the wound,
     And sanguine streams distain’d the sacred ground.
     Thus Priam fell, and shar’d one common fate
     With Troy in ashes, and his ruin’d state:
     He, who the scepter of all Asia sway’d,
     Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obey’d.
     On the bleak shore now lies th’ abandon’d king,
     A headless carcass, and a nameless thing.

[Vivat! Crescat! Floreat!]