Michel Fronti - Portrait Of A Young Blonde Girl

Michel FRONTIMarseille, 1862 – Marseille, 1936Portrait of a young blonde girlPastel signed top right “M. Fronti”35 x 27 cm (56 x 50 cm with the frame)Original frameVery good conditionThis is a very pretty pastel portrait by the painter and pastellist Michel Fonti. Born in 1862 in Marseille to a Spanish father, he was a student of Eugène Lagier at the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, then of Jules Lefèbvre in Paris. Michel Fronti exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from the 1880s. His works are mentioned in the catalogue of works at the Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille (the "Boutique de pain à Marseille", 1889) and at the Cantini Museum with several works ("Le repos", a "House in a garden" and the portrait of Mrs. Maurice Hubert, 1914). Fronti participated in the Salon des Artistes français from 1889 to 1935 with pastels and in particular very pretty portraits of women (Portrait of a young girl, portrait of Madame Parinando, Portrait of Mademoiselle Harriet Strasy, from the Théatre de la Monnaie in Messaline, 1911). He was awarded a medal of honor in 1920 for a "Reclining Woman, Study of a Nude" (pastel) and a silver medal in 1922 ("Indolence", pastel). He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Marseillais and the Salon de la Société des Artistes Provençaux. In 1898, "Michel Fronti, under the name of Ponponnette, exhibited a study of a young woman that made many visitors stop, amazed to find so much brilliance in this fresh pastel, while, in an oil painting by the same artist, a marked predilection for the conventional colors of the school of M. Gérome was evident. This is the top of the basket, the flower of the pastels exhibited, but alongside these beautiful blooms, everyone noticed a number of buds full of the most seductive promises: the two studies of women by Mme Frederique Vallet; the Parisienne by Mule Tournoy; the study head by Mme de Mazet; the very beautiful portrait of Mrs. P. by Mr. Marre, who excels in giving pastel a very particular vigor. » (Bulletin of the Society of Letters, Sciences and Arts of Agen, Edition of the year 1898)