Lady with a Fan

Listed as an Arab genre painter in Popular 19th Century Painting Dictionary by Hook and Poltimore, Pinel de Grandchamp went to the Middle East immediately after his Salon debut of 1849. Achieving a substantial reputation as a portraitist of Ottoman notables in Cairo and Constantinople, he remained in the Orient for fifteen years. The present work retains much of the exotic Oriental atmosphere with props like the Ottoman mother-of-pearl inlaid coffee table and the Turkish coffee service, but was likely painted in Paris during the 1870s when de Grandchamp turned his attention to scenes of contemporary life. Shurr and Cabanne praise this later period in de Grandchamp's ouevre calling attention to his 'solid draftsmanship and palette fortuitously rendering the effects of movement and light' (Dictionnaire des Petits Maitres de la Peinture 1820-1920, pp. 295-6). Similar works to the present lot by de Grandchamp are also listed in the 1870s stock books of the Maison Goupil (in the collection of the Getty Museum).