Victor Carre-soubiran - Sleeping Beauty At The Good Old Woman's House

Victor CARRE-SOUBIRAN Montereau (Seine-et-Marne), 18.. – 1897 Oil on canvas 76 x 56 cm (94 x 76 cm with the frame) Signed lower left “Carré-Soubiran” Painting exhibited at the Salon des Artistes French (474. Sleeping Beauty at the good old lady's house) Beautiful 19th century frame in wood and gilded stucco This painting was exhibited by Victor Carré-Soubiran at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris in 1870 under the title “La Belle au Bois -Sleeping with the good old lady” (number 474). A student of Théodore Chassériau, Victor Carré-Soubiran exhibited interior scenes with beautiful elegant women at the Paris Salon between 1868 and 1880 in a style close to Dutch painters. Our painting here takes up a well-known episode from the tale of Sleeping Beauty. According to the best known version, Charles Perrault (1697) wrote that “It happened that the young princess, running one day in the castle, and going from room to room, went to the top of a dungeon, into a small garret where a good old woman was alone spinning her distaff. This good woman had not heard of the king's prohibition against spinning. “What are you doing here, my good woman? said the princess. “I am spinning my beautiful child,” replied the old woman, who did not know her. —Ah! How pretty! replied the princess; how do you do ? let me see if I could do the same. » — She had no sooner taken the spindle than, as she was very lively, a little dizzy, and moreover the decree of the fairies ordered it so, she pierced her hand and fell unconscious . The good old woman, very embarrassed, cries for help: water is thrown in the princess's face, she is unlaced, her hands are slapped, her temples are rubbed with water from the Queen of Hungary; but nothing made her come back. Then the king, who had come up at the noise, remembered the fairies' prediction, and, judging that it must happen, since the fairies had said so, had the princess placed in a beautiful apartment in the palace, on a bed in gold and silver embroidery. She looked like an angel, she was so radiant; for her fainting had not taken away the bright colors of her complexion: her cheeks were red, and her lips were like coral; She only had her eyes closed, but we could hear her breathing softly: which showed that she was not dead. The king ordered that she be allowed to sleep in peace until her time to wake up came. »