Saint Clare receives her sister by Boutet de Monvel
Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850-1913)
Saint Clare receives her sister, 1896
Pen and black ink, Sotheby’s
Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (18 October 1850 – 16 March 1913) was a French painter and illustrator best known for his watercolours for children's books. He was a major figure in nineteenth-century children's book illustration. Born in Orléans, Boutet de Monvel was the second of nine children; his father, Benjamin Boutet de Monvel (1820–1880), was a physics and chemistry professor.[ His maternal grandfather was the tenor Adolphe Nourrit (1802–1839), and there were other artists in the family.
He began attending the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in early 1870. During the Franco-Prussian War, he served in the French army. With the return of peace, he began attending the Académie Julian, where he worked with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefèbvre, both major influences on his early work.
He died in Nemours in 1913. Not long afterwards, the Manzi et Joyant Gallery organised a retrospective of his work in Paris. Further retrospectives have followed, and a large traveling show was organized in the United States in 1987-88. Some of his work is held by museums.
Boutet de Monvel is still considered a master of the children's illustration genre for the originality of his work. His style has been praised for its lack of unnecessary detail, and it has been noted that his images provide "a revelation of a subject which the writer has treated only in a fragmentary and superficial manner." He has been ranked alongside Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott as a leading figure of the 19th century's golden era of children's book illustration. Source: Sotheby's
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