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Lot Essay
Jean Braud's images of Parisian life earned him the high praise of being 'Le Boilly de la fin de siecle' from his contemporary Roger Ballu. No stranger to the elite world that he portrayed, Braud's pictures chronical the customs and fashions of the era in minute detail and frequently depict the soirees to which he was invited. The subject of life on the grands boulevards was a favorite for Braud and the present picture is set on the Champs Elyses. Baron Haussmann had conceived of the neighborhood around the Champs Elyses as the epicenter of luxurious residential living and shopping. The wide, tree-lined boulevard was designed to provide a long urban vista that lead to the monumental structure of the Arc de Triomphe which can be seen in the distance of the present picture. This avenue was resonate with high-society and the significance of the elegant attire and department store hatboxes of the woman, the debonaire gentleman standing admiringly at a distance, and the well-appointed coaches passing on the road would not have been lost on Breaud's fashionable contemporaries. In La modiste sur les Champs Elyses Braud presents a vignette of the life of the avenue on a busy afternoon. Painted with lively brushwork and glowing color it shows Braud working at his prime. While the painting conveys the impression of having been painted spontaneously in situ, there exists two other smaller versions of this subject, one of which was sold at Sotheby's, New York, 16 February 1994, lot 157.
Braud was a close friend of Edouard Manet and frequented the same cafs, restaurants and theatres as Degas, Renior and Toulouse-Lautrec. He shared with the Impressionists a spontaneity of brushwork and interest in the naturalistic effects of light. While his work is imbued with the spirit of Impressionism, however, his pictures retain a unique character routed in the more classically accepted style of the day. Few painters have left such an exuberant and prolific view of Parisian life in the last decades of the 19th century.
Patrick Offenstadt with the Foundation Wildenstein will include this work in their forthcoming Beraud catalogue raisonn.
Braud was a close friend of Edouard Manet and frequented the same cafs, restaurants and theatres as Degas, Renior and Toulouse-Lautrec. He shared with the Impressionists a spontaneity of brushwork and interest in the naturalistic effects of light. While his work is imbued with the spirit of Impressionism, however, his pictures retain a unique character routed in the more classically accepted style of the day. Few painters have left such an exuberant and prolific view of Parisian life in the last decades of the 19th century.
Patrick Offenstadt with the Foundation Wildenstein will include this work in their forthcoming Beraud catalogue raisonn.