Madeleine Lemaire
Madeleine Jeanne Lemaire (* 1845 in Les Arcs -Sainte- Roseline in the Var as Madeleine Jeanne Coll or Colle, † April 8, 1928 in Paris) was a French painter, graphic artist and Salonnière. The artist created paintings in the style of the Académie des Beaux -Arts, and is especially known for her rose still life. In the run of her literary salon frequented well-known aristocrats, politicians and artists. Among them was the writer Marcel Proust, whose book Les plaisirs et les jours, she illustrated and chose it as a model for one of his fictional characters.
Life
Career as a painter
Born in southern France Les Arcs Madeleine Lemaire came in 1857 at the age of twelve years to Paris, where she took classes in the drawing school of Jean- Mathilde Herbelin ( 1820-1904 ) and Charles Chaplin. She made her debut in 1864 at the Salon de Paris and presented here on a regular basis from now on their works, for which she received in 1877 and 1900 awards. In addition, she presented her work from 1879 to the Société des Aquarellistes. She created pastels, watercolors, drawings and paintings, in addition to landscapes and portraits and genre pieces in the academic style show and inspired by the art of the 18th century. She was known primarily for her floral still life, paying particular the presentation of roses turned to. Robert de Montesquiou called them accordingly as " l' impératrice of roses" ( Empress of the Roses). They also illustrated books such as Les plaisirs et les jours of Marcel Proust and L' Abbe Constantin by Ludovic Halévy and poems of Robert de Montesquiou. The Proust biographer George Painter identified them as the woman who served as the model for the character of Madame Verdurins in his novel In Search of Lost Time. Her daughter Suzette Lemaire was Édouard Manet for two pictures model. Madeleine Lemaire was inducted into the Legion of Honor in 1906. Thirty of their works exhibited in 2010, the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris as part of an exhibition of women painters in times of Marcel Proust.
Madeleine Lemaire: Roses
Madeleine Lemaire: Ophelia
Madeleine Lemaire: Phoebe
Madame Lemaire as hostess
Madeleine Lemaire was one of the major hosts of the Belle Epoque. In her Paris mansion in the Rue de Monceau # 31 received them nobles, politicians, artists and other renowned personalities of her time. From April to June of the year they invited every Tuesday in her salon, although these are less concerned about consuming furnished premises, but their building under house studio, where guests were able to examine their current pictures. Offering a sophisticated conversation the artists present occasionally gave samples of their skills. So recite writers from their works, the pianist Harold Bauer or the composer Reynaldo Hahn, Camille Saint- Saens and Massenet played on the piano and the Ballerina Rosita Mauri danced before the present.
Marcel Proust published under the pseudonym of Dominique in the newspaper Le Figaro on May 11, 1903 article Le salon de Mme Madeleine Lemaire, in which he described the atmosphere of the salon and numerous guests auflistete. This includes, for example, numerous aristocrats like the Comtesse Greffulhe, the Comtesse Adhéaume de Chevigné, the Duchesse d' Uzes, Honore d' Albert, Duc de Luynes and his wife were born Simone de Crussol d' Uzes, the Comte Boniface de Castellane, the Baronne de Rothschild, the Comtesse de Pourtàles and the Comte d' Haussonville. Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, even working as a painter, was one of the girlfriends of Madeleine Lemaire. There were politicians such as Raymond Poincaré, Paul Deschanel, Léon Victor Bourgeois and Émile Loubet, the Ambassador of Italy, Germany and Russia, or military such as General Joseph Brugère.
Especially numerous are the writers were among the guests. Besides Proust names such as Victorien Sardou, Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, Robert de Montesquiou, Robert de Flers, Gaston Arman de Caillavet, Francis de Croisset, Jules Lemaître, Anatole France, Alexandre Dumas the Younger, François Coppée and Georges de Porto - Riche. There were journalists such as Henri Rochefort, Alfred Mézières and Gaston Calmette. Other guests included actresses Rejane and Sarah Bernhardt and Constant Coquelin the actor Benoît, Jean Mounet -Sully and Lucien Guitry. From the opera singers Emma Calvé, Gabrielle Krauss and Marie van Zandt and singer Jean Bartet and Félix Mayol came. Not least also honored fellow painters such as Jean -Louis Forain, Jean Béraud, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jean Baptiste Edouard Detaille, Léon Bonnat, Antonio de la Gandara Raimundo de Madrazo and the hostess. In his painting Une chanson de Gibert dans le salon de madame Madeleine Lemaire in 1891, the painter Pierre -Georges Jeanniot held one of the meetings in the Salon Lemaire. The painting is in the collection of the Musée d'Art et d'Industrie in Roubaix.
In the summer months, Madeleine Lemaire received guests at Château de Reveillon on the Marne or in a house in Dieppe on the English Channel, where they visited, for example, Marcel Proust and Reynaldo Hahn.
Works in public collections (selection)
- Fleurs dans un vase à deux anses, Gouache, Louvre, Paris
- Maître d' hôtel apportant une lettre sur un plateau, drawing, Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Portrait de femme, drawing, Musée d'art et d' archéologie des Sciences naturelles, Troyes
- Still Life, gouache, Musée Louis Senlecq, L' Isle- Adam
- Choix d' Œillets, watercolor, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse
- Pivoines, University of Dundee, Dundee