Tony Robert-fleury (1837-1911) Portrait Of A Ship's Captain

Tony ROBERT-FLEURY
(Paris 1837 - 1911)
Portrait of a naval captain
Oil on mahogany panel
H. 43 cm; W. 33 cm
Signed lower left

ony Robert-Fleury studied with his father Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, then in the studios of Léon Cogniet and Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He bonded with his other students like Gustave Boulanger, Louis Gallet and Ernest Hébert. His first painting sent to the Paris Salon of 1866, is a large historical composition of the massacre in Warsaw on April 8, 1861. The following year, the Luxembourg Museum buys his Old women on the Place Navona, as well as The last day of Corinth in 1870, after a subject of Livy. In 1880, he painted a ceiling for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris depicting The Glorification of French Sculpture. Tony Robert-Fleury succeeds Bouguereau as President of the Society of French Artists, with which he teaches at the Académie Julian, of which he is the titular professor. He was made Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1907. In 1908, he was elected President of the Taylor Foundation, a position he held until the end of his life. He is renowned for his historical compositions, for his portraits and his genre scenes. It is a particularly interesting portrait that a young Tony Robert-Fleury offers us, around 1860. It is rare at this time to see such life in a portrait that we notice here by the action of the wind in the sideburns (name of the beard worn by this captain of the ship), as in the black tie whose knot would almost seek to come undone. Yet it is a flat, white sea that can be seen above the railing, reflecting under a cloudy sky. Unfortunately not identified, this naval captain sporting a Legion of Honor rosette under his many gallons and epaulettes is represented on the deck of his ship.