Hector Viger (du Vigneau), Les Lilas Du Voisin (salon Of 1878), Drawing On Blue Paper, Signed

Hector Viger, also known as Victor Viger du Vigneau (1819 – 1879)
Les Lilas du voisin (The neighbor's Lilac flowers) – drawing after his painting from the Salon of 1878
Graphite heightened with white chalk on blue paper
26.2 x 15 cm
Signed and dated, in pencil, lower left: “ H. Viger. 1879 »
Titled on the reverse, in pencil: “Les Lilas du voisin”

Very good state of conservation
Mounting of a previous frame
Unframed

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Disciple of some of the most refined academic painters of the first half of the 19th century, namely Martin Drölling , Paul Delaroche and Henri Lehmann, Hector Viger (1819 – 1879) is a forgotten or too little-known artist, although he exhibited at the Salon almost every year from 1845 to 1878. His art charmed the spectators of his time with paintings essentially historical (episodes of life under the First Empire) or religious, but sometimes, as here, with delicate genre scenes of daily life.

Here, a moment in the heart of spring, when the spectacle of the neighbor's lilacs, which overflow from the surrounding wall and which charm with their color and scent, becomes so irresistible that you just have to climb a ladder to steal a sprig , or two, or even a whole bouquet.

The drawing is very delicate. The artist uses the tone of the blue paper to increase his volumes using pencil and very light highlights of white chalk. Everything is very refined, the shadow of the ladder, the curve of the arm, the swing of the neck and the hair of this young epicurean. In the foreground, on the right, the artist even allows himself a more rapid movement of the pencil, to represent a bush, or perhaps the wind in the spring grass.

A beautiful drawing on blue paper, very well preserved, which also allows us to know the composition of a painting exhibited at the Salon of 1878, for the moment not located. The artist, who died in 1879, the same year as our drawing (and which he therefore executed in memory of the painting), composed there one of his most delicate canvases, and therefore one of his most delicate drawing.

A recent result from Osenat auction house allows us to compare both the style of the drawing, as well as the signature and the market value of our artist: https://www.osenat.com/lot/129640/19885560-louis-victor-viger- du-vingeau