Paul LEROY - Young shepherdess from the Creuse

Paul LEROY
Paris, 1860 - Paris, 1942
Young Shepherdess of the Creuse
Oil on canvas
54 x 72 cm (70 x 87 cm with frame)
Signed and located lower left "Paul Leroy / Sardent"
Painting exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1921 and titled "Young Shepherdess of the Marche"
Original frame
Very good condition

Paul Leroy was an academic painter, a student of Alexandre Cabanel, who was also a religious painter, an Orientalist painter, and a painter of the Creuse region. He created his works with unwavering passion. He was deeply attached to his Christian faith as well as to Oriental civilization (he learned Arabic, frequently traveled to North Africa—especially Algeria—and founded the Society of French Orientalist Painters with Etienne Dinet in 1893). And he became attached to the Creuse region, to its landscapes and its people.
We find his qualities as a painter in our painting, those of a "master of light" who knew how to render the beauty of nature and its figures, while respecting the truth of human expression and the details of nature.
Our painting is located in Sardent, which is in the Marche region. It was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1821 under the title "Young Shepherdess of the Marche." There is a very fine sanguine drawing, a pencil study for the model of the young girl in our painting, held at the Albertina in Vienna with an inscription: "Drawing made in Sardent (Creuse) after a shepherdess (1820) for the painting exhibited at the Salon of 1821 under the title 'Young Shepherdess of the Marche.'" It later served as the basis for his painting *Young Shepherdess of the Marche*, exhibited at the 1921 Paris Salon, the current whereabouts of which are unknown (catalogue *The 1921 Salon*, no. 1227: “Young Shepherdess of the Marche”; Leroy 1974, p. 136, under heading V “Various Subjects”: “Young Shepherdess of the Marche, in Sardent, 1921 Salon”).
Paintings by Paul Leroy are notably held in the Fine Arts Museums of Rouen, Lille, Autun, and Nemours, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Ref: C8PRL67J3L