Henri Moral - Milking Cows

Henri MORALLille, 1840 – Lille, 1889Milking the cowsOil on canvas55 x 45 cm (67.5 x 58.5 cm with the frame)Signed lower right “MORAL”Beautiful painted wooden frame from the 1920sVery good conditionThe newspaper Le Nord illustré wrote in May 1890: “At the beginning of last winter, death prematurely took away a talented and promising painter, Henri Moral.”Henri Moral was a painter from the North of France, born in Lille on May 10, 1840. He died young at thirty-nine, and was already considered by his peers as a renowned naturalist painter. He received his first drawing lessons in a sculpture workshop with Mr. Hurtrel. In 1861 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts and won several prizes: in 1869 the first prize for painting with a second-class medal, then the first prize for composition in painted sketch. In 1881, he was appointed professor of drawing, architecture and modeling in Armentières in the North. He was then also a professor at the École supérieure industrielle de Tourcoing, and an officer of the academy. Having died in 1889, Henri Moral had time to paint some beautiful paintings and to be recognized by his colleagues as an estimable painter. The large raffle (more than three hundred prizes) organized in 1890 in the large room on the first floor of the Palais-Rameau in Lille for the benefit of his family was organized by the painter Pharaon de Winter. And among the donors who contributed were the great naturalist painters of the time: Jules Breton, Carolus Duran. Commere, Agache, Edgard Boutry, Cordonnier, Denneulin, Remy Cogghe, de Winter, Harpignies, Krabansky, Leroy, Schoutteten, Weerts and Gaston Thy. The ord Illustre wrote in May 1890: "The enthusiasm with which tickets are taken is only equalled by that with which prizes are sent. In short, a raffle which is one of the events of regional life."