Alexandre, François Bonnardel (1867-1942) - Elegant 1830, Oil On Cardboard Signed. Around 1920

Alexandre-François BONNARDEL (Pajay, Isère 1867 - Lyon, Rhône 1942). - "Elegant 1830" or "Fantasy Portrait". Oil on canvas cardboard signed lower right: "A.-F BONNARDEL". Undated. Around 1920. Spiritually painted, this tableau tin inhabited by a singular grace reveals the facets of Alexandre-François Bonnardel's talent: carefully elaborated composition, broad execution and verve of the drawing, refined chromatic values specific to the "melodic style" of this "tasty colorist", brilliance both exquisite and beguiling in the pure fantasy female portraits which, from 1905 (L'Indolence), punctuate the artist's pictorial universe. In this quickly removed oil on cardboard, the Lyon painter refines with remarkable stylistic dilletantism the image of a young woman pleasantly disguised as an Elegant Lady from the 1830s. Represented seated, nestled in cozy cushions placed on the armrests of a large armchair in lacquered wood, this one, gloved, costumed in a yellow silk dress with puffed sleeves belted under the chest, is captured in an attitude oscillating between nonchalance and distinguished casualness. Under her ample frilly headgear with carelessly untied ribbons, the model sports a subtly rosy face spiced up with a flirtatious smile. Adopting an intimate posture and gestures, the young woman, seductive under her clothing from yesteryear, simpers with her portraitist. As bold as it is sophisticated, AFBonnardel's chromatic palette plays here with bluish, golden yellow or ocher tones brightened with vermillion and rosé; luminous, whites model the shapes, crisscross the composition enhanced with verve with touches of orange and brown-black. These "learned and precisely measured colors" envelop this small-scale work with an intimate, even singular aura that seems to be combined, haloed by its mandorla, with a serene Buddha seated in padmasana on a lotiform base - a seductive motif in the interiors created by the artist in the 1920s- looming in the background of this picturesque and alluring pictorial composition. With regard to the artistic career of Alexandre-François Bonnardel -see his bibliography established for his painting "Les Chrysanthèmes. Floral composition in a copper vase, 1920-1930-, our oil on cardboard dates from the 1920s, decade in during which the artist will deliver, in the wake of his Salon paintings entitled "Indolence", "Le Chapeau à la Femme" (1905), seductive female portraits represented either naked (Young Woman at her Toilette, Woman with a Mirror, 1930) or in 19th century costumes in dreamy, languid attitudes (The Distracted Reader, Young Woman Seated from Back, circa 1920, Dormeuse, 1930, Délassez, 1932). We will mention that Emmanuel Bénézit in his Dictionary of Painters, Sculptors, Designers and French engravers, (Grund, 1939, Volume I, p. 665) notes that an oil on cardboard (23x17) entitled "Elégante 1830" forming a pendant with "Young woman at her toilet" (same dimensions) went on sale at Paris, in June 1988. Which corresponds to our table. ----------- Oil on cardboard - canvas under glass. Signed lower right: “A.-F BONNARDEL”. Undated. Gilded wooden frame with border and spandrels highlighted with stylized leafy acanthus scroll motifs. French school of painting from the end of the 19th to the first half of the 20th century. Dimensions: excluding frame: H.: 23 cm;-L.: 17 cm; With frame: H.: 35cm-L. : 29 cm. Provenance: Private collection. Very good condition. Summary bibliography: Bénézit, Emmanuel, Dictionary of French Painters, Sculptors, Designers and Engravers, Grund, 1939, Volume I, p. 665; -Schurr, Gérald and Cabanne, Pierre, The Little Masters of Painting, 1820-1920, Ed.de L'Amateur, 2014, p.137;-