Armand Berton - Young Girl Drawing Her Doll

Armand BERTON (Paris, 1854 – Paris, 1917)
Young girl drawing her doll
Oil on canvas
46×55 cm / 54,5×63,5 with the frame
Signed lower right « Arm^d Berton »

A pupil of Aimé Millet at the Petite ecole then of Alexandre Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Armand Berton exhibited at the Salon from 1875. Painter, pastel artist and engraver, he distinguished himself by a singular style, mixing muted tones and vaporous contours. A friend of Eugene Carriere, whom he joined artistically in the use of brown tones and the sfumato technique, he copied the old masters at the Louvre and in Italy to perfect his artistic training and said he was a great admirer of Rembrandt[1 ].
Apart from the portraits, his production is concentrated on female nudes and evocations of the world of childhood, treated in an intimate way in a restricted color palette. In this painting, a young girl with beautiful red hair holds a red pencil in her hand, with the aid of which she is probably drawing her doll, which she keeps with the other hand on the chair where she draws it. placed to do his portrait. Behind them, the spectator guesses a table covered with papers and a vase of flowers, surrounded by several chairs, a decor that brings him into the intimacy of a home, which one might think is that of the painter. Although single, Armand Berton has been able to transcribe here with great tenderness the attachment of a little girl for her doll and the application she puts into trying to reproduce its features.
[1] L. Roger-Milès, “Comments by painters on some masters of the past”, Le Figaro, September 20, 1905, p. 4.