Sunday 11 February 2018

Bathtime Venus: Jeune femme au bain by Fernand Lematte (1850-1929)



Here we have a lady climbing into a, particularly luxurious looking, transparent bath by French painter Fernand Lematte.  Lematte studied at the l'école des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1870 won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to live and work in Rome from 1871 until 1874.


A Dryad (1871)


In an artistically and commercially successful career he painted historical and classical subjects as well as portraits and religious paintings. 


Odalisque with a monkey


He also did some orientalist works, both in the travelogue style and in the more fantasy harem type, as here.


A bather


From later in his life we have this more impressionist style al fresco bather.  He is a painter who is little known these days, despite his prize winning career but he produced some delightful paintings.


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