LA GALLERYA PRESENTS
VIRILE PORTRAIT
IMPORTANT AND RARE MINIATURE WITH ANTIQUE BOULLE FRAME
BY THE PARISIAN PAINTER CONSTANCE MAYER
H20CM X 17CM
Marie-Françoise-Constance Mayer La Martinière, simply known as Constance Mayer (Chauny, 9 March 1775 – Paris, 26 May 1821).
She was one of the most important French painters between the late 1700s and early 1800s. [1]
Biography
She was the daughter of a government official, who encouraged her interest in art and especially painting. Mayer was painting genre scenes and portraits when she was twenty years old. [2] She was an artistic disciple of Joseph-Benoît Suvée and then of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, [3] ??beginning to exhibit her works from 1796. [1] Constance Mayer's style was clear and precise, in accordance with the teachings of Neoclassicism in vogue at the time. [4]
After the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, society became more peaceful and works such as painted and miniature portraits became popular. Mayer painted portraits of women and children, family scenes, self-portraits and miniatures of her father. She achieved some success, exhibiting the Self-Portrait with her Father at the 1801 Salon, in which he indicates a bust of Raphael, inviting her to take this renowned painter as a model. Sensitive to the point of view of female artists, Mayer presented her works as a student of Greuze and Suvée, so that they could be more acceptable to the public. She worked in Jacques-Louis David's studio in 1801 and adopted a simple and direct style, but always depicted sentimental scenes. [2]
A portrait of Constance Mayer made by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon around 1804.
From 1802 she collaborated with Pierre Paul Prud'hon, [2] with whom she became very close, if not in a love relationship, remaining close to him for life, opening an art studio next to his and taking care of his children when his wife went mad and was hospitalized in a sanatorium in 1803. [1] Both had exhibited works at the Salon and, unlike Prud'hon, she had received a better artistic education, while he was known for his talent in drawing and for particularly complex historical subject compositions. [5] After Prud'hon divorced his wife, Emperor Napoleon gave him an apartment at the Sorbonne. Around the same time (circa 1803), Napoleon, who had purchased two of Mayer's paintings, also gave her an apartment. There she acted as Prud'hon's assistant, raised his five children and became known as his "favorite pupil." [6]
The death of her father in 1810 gave her a substantial inheritance, with which she lived serenely in the following years. [4] The relationship with Prud'hon and the Sorbonne then guaranteed her great artistic and economic freedom. However, with the Restoration, the Sorbonne was requisitioned and subjected to control and censorship by royal officials, significantly impacting Constance Mayer's independence. Furthermore, Prud'hon's persistent refusal to marry her despite being now a widower caused her to fall into depression, leading her to suicide on 26 May 1821. [1]
She was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Prud'hon, devoured by guilt for her death, completed the last painting she had left unfinished, and when he himself died two years later he had himself buried next to her. [1]
Controversy
As often happened to female artists who were associated with more famous male artists, claims were made that she had not created all the works attributed to her and, due to her long relationship with Prud'hon, it is still not known exactly which ones she created and which ones he did. The confusion is mainly due to the fact that the two artists collaborated on various works: he made the sketches of the composition and she made the paintings. Many were exhibited in her name, but when her works entered public collections they were attributed to Prud'hon. For example, The Sleep of Venus and Cupid, currently attributed to Mayer, was initially attributed to Prud'hon by the staff of the Wallace Collection. [5]
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