André Brouillet (1857-1914) - Athens, The Acropolis At Dusk, 1903

André Brouillet (1857-1914)
Athens, the Acropolis At Twilight, 1903
Oil on canvas
27 x 41 cm
44 x 58 cm with its frame
Annotated "The purple shroud where the dead gods sleep" (Renan)
Dedicated, signed André Brouillet , located in Athens and dated 1903 lower left

"The purple shroud where the dead gods sleep" is an extract from a famous quote by Ernest Renan taken from his Memories of Childhood and Youth, II, Prayer on the Acropolis . Here is the full quote: "The faith we have had should never be a chain. We are quit with it when we have carefully rolled it up in the purple shroud where the dead gods sleep"

This painting was certainly made in the time when André Brouillet was working on his large canvas "Renan at the Acropolis of Athens" and on the theme of the Prayer on the Acropolis of Renan.

Son of the sculptor Pierre-Amédée Brouillet and Élisabeth Leriget, André Brouillet began studying engineering in 1876 at the École centrale Paris before entering the École des Beaux-Arts three years later, where he was a student. by Jean-Léon Gérôme1. The year of his reception at the Salon, in 1879, he took lessons from Jean-Paul Laurens. During his career, he won multiple awards at his exhibitions and benefited from numerous public commissions. He is most famous for his canvas A clinical lesson at the Salpêtrière (Salon of 1887, National Fund for Contemporary Art) which represents the neurologist Jean Martin Charcot examining the patient Blanche Wittmann, then considered "hysterical", during one of these famous "Tuesday lessons", of which he had made a real "show". Charcot is represented there surrounded by a large number of his students and collaborators, including Théodule Ribot, Paul Richer and Gilles de La Tourette. We also see the neurologist Joseph Babinski supporting the patient. Brouillet is also the author of La Violation du tombeau d'Urgel par les Dominicains, L'Exorcisme. Arab musicians chasing the jinn from the body of a child (1884, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims), The Wounded Peasant (Salon of 1886), The Ambulance of the Comédie-Française in 1870 (1891), Le Vaccin du croup at the Trousseau Hospital (1895), as well as portraits of personalities of the time, including Joseph Babinski and Adolphe Carnot (1905). Influenced by his master Jean-Léon Gérôme, Brouillet devoted himself to orientalist painting, thanks to his discovery of the native country of his wife, Emma Isaac, daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant from Constantine, cousin of Ferdinand Isaac, of whom he will even adopt the daughter, Yvonne, born out of wedlock in 1889 in Constantine, on the death of his mother, Marie-Louise Travers, on December 19, 1892. The following year, in 1893, returned to France with his adopted daughter, he will raise Yvonne as her own daughter, depicting her in 14 canvases. Pupil of the singer Louise Grandjean, this one will be hired, on June 25, 1911, at the Opéra-Comique as a lyrical singer, under the stage name of "Yvonne Florentz", and will marry the composer Joseph-Eugène Szyfer (nl ), in 1913. Brouillet traveled twice to Greece, first in 1901 to carry out a state commission (Renan meditating on his prayer on the Acropolis) then in 1903 to produce the portrait of the Queen Olga of Greece, in 1901. In 1904, the magazine Femina consecrated him as the “painter of women”. In 1906, he was promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor, at the same time as he received the gold medal of the Salon where he presented his large composition for the Sorbonne The Students acclaim Edgar Quinet and Edmond Michelet on March 6, 1848 when they regain possession of their pulpit. Leaving on an icy road to rescue a convoy of Belgian refugees, on December 6, 1914, he was struck by congestion and died a few hours later. His funeral took place in Couhé Vérac. Works in public collections Bordeaux, Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of Goya after Vicente Lopez, 1894, oil on canvas. Dole, Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of Mrs. Fornasari, 1886, oil on canvas. Grenoble, Grenoble Museum: The Wounded Peasant, 1886, inv. MG 833. Paris: National School of Mines: Portrait of Adolphe Carnot, Director of the Paris School of Mines, 1905. Petit Palais: Portrait of Jean and Jeanne, the children of Professor Joffroy, 1895, oil on canvas; The Simple Life, 1904, oil on canvas. Poitiers, Sainte-Croix Museum: Puteaux, National Contemporary Art Fund: A clinical lesson at the Salpêtrière, 1887, oil on canvas. Violation of the tomb of the bishop of Urgel, 1881, oil on canvas, inv. 2015.9.15; Self-portrait, 1898, oil on canvas, inv. 2000.3. Reims, Museum of Fine Arts: Waiting, 1882, oil on canvas, inv. 884.1.2; Exorcism. Arab musicians chasing jinns from the body of a child, 1884, oil on canvas, inv. 2019.1.10