Allegory Of Vices And Virtues - Jules Joseph Lefebvre

JULES JOSEPH LEFEBVRE "Allegory of vices and virtues" Oil on canvas, 100x150 cm, with the inscription "paint by J.Lefebvre" on the back. Provenance: Private Italian collection The painting represents a kneeling young man being cuddled by a group of young women representing vices and virtues. To the right standing, Glory holds out a laurel branch to him, beside him he has a woman who is an allegory of Silence. A mature and wise woman caresses the child's head: she has a winged crown and is the allegory of Victory. Behind the Victory, a beautiful young woman in a blue dress quilted with stars points to the sky and the virtues that lead upwards. Immediately after follows Venus, half naked crowned with roses with a dove (her attribute) in her hand: he looks at the child smiling and holds a lyre, signifying the pleasures of love and fragile and fleeting things. At the feet of Venus a bacchant crowned with ivy and dressed in red observes the young man, kneeling beside her, an auleta with long flutes, blue dresses and a head covered with flowers, invites us to forgetfulness and to enjoyment. In the background, a veiled woman and a half-naked bacchant with a thyrsus engaged in a frenzied dance. The painting is an important work of one of the most important French painters of the end of the 19th century: Jules Joseph Lefebvre. The artist specialized in allegories, genre scenes, portraits and nudes. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1861, during his stay in Italy, he also painted numerous works with subjects taken from classical antiquity. Back in Paris, he became a famous scholar, known for his paintings of beautiful statuary women, both naked and draped. His paintings are in the main French and European museums. BIOGRAPHY: Jules Joseph Lefebvre (Tournan-en-Brie, March 14, 1836 - Paris, February 24, 1912) is a French academic painter. Very good portrait painter, he was the rival of William-Adolphe Bouguereau for his female nudes. Entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1852, Lefebvre was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and won the Prix de Rome in 1861 with La morte di Priam. From 1855 to 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits at the Paris Salon. He teaches at the Académie Julian, where he has many students. Lefebvre owes his fame mainly to his female nudes, a genre in which he competes with William-Adolphe Bouguereau. In 1868, his Reclining Woman caused a sensation, but his most famous work was La Verità, a statue of a naked woman holding a mirror, visible at the Musée d'Orsay. Popular portraits are those of Madame Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874). He obtained a first class medal at the Paris Expo of 1878 and a medal of honor at the Salon of 1886. In 1891, he was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and was appointed commander of the Legion of honor. Jules Joseph Lefebvre died in Paris at the age of 75.