Lot Essay
Monsieur Etienne Grafe and Professor Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier both confirmed the attribution to Berjon from photographs in letters dated 18 and 22 September 1996, respectively. The pastel is described by Professor Hardouin-Fugier 'je ne peux qu'admirer la sûreté du dessin, l'étrangeté de la nature morte aux deux vases, le choix de végétaux singuliers de la composition horizontale [cf. next lot], bref, il ne fait aucun doute que Berjon soit l'auteur des deux pastels'.
The pastel is dated 13 Vandémiaire, the tenth year of the Republic, which corresponds to 5 September 1801, and must have been drawn at the time when the artist was living in Paris.
Berjon studied with Antoine Michel Perrache and like most artists from Lyon he first worked as a textile-designer. In 1794 Berjon moved to Paris were he met Augustin and painted miniatures. In 1810 he returned to Lyon and replaced Jean-François Bony as Professor of flower painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the thirteen years that Berjon taught he had more than 200 pupils and he continued to teach after his retirement in 1823. With Thierriat, who replaced him at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Berjon is one of the most influential flower painters of the 19th Century, E. Hardouin-Fugier and E. Grafe, The Lyon School of Flower Painters, London, 1978, pp. 27-8.
The pastel is dated 13 Vandémiaire, the tenth year of the Republic, which corresponds to 5 September 1801, and must have been drawn at the time when the artist was living in Paris.
Berjon studied with Antoine Michel Perrache and like most artists from Lyon he first worked as a textile-designer. In 1794 Berjon moved to Paris were he met Augustin and painted miniatures. In 1810 he returned to Lyon and replaced Jean-François Bony as Professor of flower painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the thirteen years that Berjon taught he had more than 200 pupils and he continued to teach after his retirement in 1823. With Thierriat, who replaced him at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Berjon is one of the most influential flower painters of the 19th Century, E. Hardouin-Fugier and E. Grafe, The Lyon School of Flower Painters, London, 1978, pp. 27-8.