Pair Of Scenes In The Antique Vestal And Muse, Circa 1800

French School of the late 18th or early 19th century, pair of antique interior scenes representing two young women seated in a decor and furniture from Greco-Roman antiquity: a vestal virgin seated on an Etruscan chair, enclosing an urn. On the right, there is a tripod table used as an altar, on which burns a brand of embers giving off incense. The muse is also seated, at the edge of a pedestal table and plays the harp. Oil on canvas, the two paintings are presented in their original frame in wood gilded with gold leaf. France, Consulate period, circa 1800, in the style of Constance Marie Charpentier. Constance-Marie Charpentier (1767-1849) is a French woman painter of neoclassicism. Little is known about his artistic training and only his style can identify his potential masters: Jean-Georges Wille, Jacques-Louis David, Louis Lafitte, François Gérard and Pierre Bouillon. What is certain is that she joined David's studio in 1787. Constance-Marie-Charpentier painted genre scenes and portraits, mainly of children and women. In 1798, she received an encouragement prize from the Ministry of the Interior for The Widow of a Day and The Widow of a Year. Her painting Melancholy is remarkable because women painters do not usually tackle a work of this complexity and are confined to painting still lifes, portraits or genre scenes. From 1798 to 1821 (or from 1795 to 1819), she exhibited around 50 paintings in various Salons, winning a gold medal in 1814 at the Salon de Paris, and a silver medal and in 1821 at the Salon de Douai. In 1801, she was noticed for her painting La Mélancolie, which the French State bought “as an encouragement”. It is this "Melancolie" painting that led us to make the connection with the work of Constance Marie Charpentier: many similarities in terms of composition, subject, way of painting faces, feet and even era. Our table is of good quality. In the absence of a signature, we cannot say with certainty whether it may be a work by Constance Marie Charpentier or the work of a talented follower. Nevertheless our paintings are very interesting by the quality of their execution, by their antique subject and more particularly by the furniture and decoration which are represented there. We recognize a Jacob's chair and the tripod pedestal table for altar use is inspired by productions by Thomire. Nice amateur set. Our paintings are in excellent condition: on their original canvas, the cleaning done by our gilder was probably the first since the start. The canvases are intact, without patching or repainting. The paintings are presented in their original frames, gilded with gold leaf. Dimensions of the canvas 63x47.5cm Dimensions of the frame 73x57cm