Eugene Loup - La Diane Du Jardin Du Luxembourg

La Diane du jardin du Luxembourg
Pastel on paper
35×55 cm
Signed “E. Loup” lower left

After a career almost exclusively devoted to portraiture, Eugène Loup approaches the landscape from 1908, exhibiting in particular many views of the Luxembourg garden. In 1912, for example, at the exhibition of the Artistic Society of Roubaix-Tourcoing, among a set of 40 works, he presented no less than 10 studies and 1 painting representing the famous Parisian garden.
This motif is familiar to him because he resides nearby. After having produced multiple portrait variations around the same female model, at the end of the 1900s he began a series of views of the Luxembourg Gardens. These are executed both in oil and pastel, a technique he has used with talent since his debut at the Salon in the 1890s, which earned him to join the very select Société de pastellistes français in 1901.
In 1914, he exhibited at the Pastellistes La Diane. Jardin du Luxembourg. A few years later, in 1928, he presented, at the Salon this time, La Diane Chasseresse (landscape, pastel). We do not know of any photograph or detailed description of these works. Still, one year after the artist's death, his widow bequeathed to the museum of fine arts in Rodez, his hometown, a pastel listed under the title Jardin du Luxembourg, Diane, of which the one we are presenting is a replica in a slightly smaller format. With its very graphic treatment, this pastel stands out from works in this medium that are usually more powdery and velvety.