Charles Lameire (1832-1910), Study For A Church

Ink drawing and watercolor highlights on mounted paper, representing a study of Saints. This is probably a project for a church, the artist counts among his projects, the church of Saint François Xavier or Notre Dame de la Garde. Work signed and dedicated at the bottom right. Paper in good general condition despite some wear. Dimensions: 47 / 34 cm Charles Lameire: Lameire began his career in the studio of the painter-decorator Alexandre Denuelle. A student of the architect Félix Duban, Denuelle was one of the main artisans of the rediscovery of medieval wall paintings and worked with Viollet-le-Duc on the revival of architectural polychromy. After twenty years of working as his master's assistant, Lameire received his first commissions in the early 1870s: the decoration of the private mansion of the entrepreneur Jules Hunebelle (1872) and that of the Saint-François-Xavier church (1873). These are emblematic of the period: while this first church project bears witness to the importance of religious decoration, which increased under the Second Empire with the proliferation of places of worship, that of the Hunebelle hotel illustrates the way in which ornament contributed to the splendor of the new homes of a bourgeoisie in full economic boom. They also reveal the variety of stylistic expressions of the painter-decorator: at the Hunebelle hotel, Lameire favored mythological inspiration in keeping with the neo-Renaissance style of the building, but at Saint-François-Xavier he experimented with the expressive power of the Byzantine style as well as, ten years later, the eloquence of the Baroque. He also participated in numerous public projects, particularly under the 3rd Republic.