Lucile FOULLON-VACHOT (circa 1775 - 1865). Portrait... Lot 36

Lucile FOULLON-VACHOT (circa 1775 - 1865). Portrait of Louis Benoît Picard (1769 - 1828), actor and playwright. Oil on canvas signed lower right Léon VACHOT F / 1816. Top. Height : 195 cm - Width : 136 cm Original frame in wood and gilded stucco. Salon of 1817, No. 336. Although characteristic of the style of Lucile Foullon, a pupil of Robert Lefèvre, we do not know why she signed her painting with the pseudonym (?) Léon Vachot, but our painting is certainly the "full-length portrait of Monsieur Picard, member of the Institute" that this woman artist exhibited at the Salon of 1817 next to the portrait of King Louis XVIII that the city of Lille had commissioned from her. Louis-Benoît Picard is one of those immortals of the Académie Française whose name is paradoxically no longer known to us today. Born in 1769 in Paris, he turned to the stage at a very early age, moving away from his studies as a lawyer. By turns actor, novelist, playwright, member of the Academy (1807), director of the Opera and the Odeon, having experienced the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, the First Republic, the Empire and the Restoration, Picard was a major figure of his time, known in the literary world as well as to the general public when he died in 1828. Several portraits represent him (Musée Marmottan), including a statue by Charles Martin which adorns the façade of the Paris City Hall. Expert : Mr Stéphane PINTA - Cabinet Eric TURQUIN - +33 1 47 03 48 78 - stephane.pinta@turquin.fr