Les amants et les cygnes

In 1890 the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a section of the official Salon, was opened at the Palais de l'Industrie under the supervision of Meissonier and Puvis de Chavannes. La Touche, who was then one of the most successful artists of the classical tradition, became a member. 'His rise to a leading position within French painting at the end of the nineteenth century was meteoric. The essence of his success seems to have resided in his supreme skills as a colourist and his choice of subject matter ... he produced easel-paintings, pastels and large-scale decorative schemes.' (the catalogue of the exhibition, Post-Impressionism, Royal Academy, London, 1979, pp. 87-8).

To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Roy Brindley and Selina Evans.