Adrien Marie - In The Box - Oil On Canvas

Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Paris in the studio of Isidore Pils, Adrien Marie was admitted from 1867 to the Salon, where he exhibited paintings and watercolors. He also joined the Society of French Watercolourists from 1887.
In parallel with this official career, he worked as an illustrator for book publishers and for several magazines, including Le Monde illustré and Le Théâtre illustré. As such, he attends the premieres of many theater and opera performances, of which he provides readers with a report in illustrations.
Familiar with theaters, he transcribes in this small sketch quickly brushed the worldliness of these evenings, where the spectators go as much to see as to be seen, as well as the atmosphere of seduction and gallantry prevailing before the start of the shows and during intermissions. Instead of focusing on what is happening on stage, Adrien Marie has chosen to represent the interior of a box where three elegant young women, in low-cut dresses, hair up and a fan in their hands, converse with three men in black suits, breastplate and white bow tie, while a fourth, older man stands aside.
To depict this small mondane scene, the painter uses chiaroscuro in shades of brown, from which only the pink touch of a flower planted in a bun and a ray of green light illuminating the forehead of the older man.