LOUIS GEORGES BRILLOUIN (1817 - 1893): A group of smokers
Signed below left, oil on canvas, doublé, dimensions 37 x 29 cm (canvas), 54 x 45 cm (frame). Price € 1.950.
This beautiful genre piece with a company of smoking gentlemen in an eighteenth-century, castle-like entourage is painted by the Frenchman Louis Georges Brillouin (1817-1893). The somewhat older, elegant gentlemen have a relaxed get-together. The strikingly brilliant colours with which Brillouin has painted the clothing give the painting a fresh and cheerful look. The gentleman in red, placed in the middle, attracts particular attention and seems to be the pacesetter of the club. The masterfully painted faces provide each person their own look.
Brillouin was specialized in painting everyday scenes. In 1865 he received a medal for his entries 'Chasseur' and 'Scene de jeu'. The painting 'la visite d'amateurs' that Brillouin exhibited at the Salon in 1867 was purchased for the collection of the Belgian king.
Brillouin attended the Academy of Fine Arts from 1837. He was educated by the landscape painter Nicolas-Louis Cabat (1812-1893) and Prix de Rome laureate Michel-Martin Drolling (1756-1851). In 1843, Brillouin exhibited his first canvas at the Salon, a landscape painting. He painted, among other things history paintings with scenes situated in the studios of Rubens, Rembrandt (see link) and Tinteretto, artists whom he probably admired. The fact that Brillouin was a very good painter and excelled in the expression of material can be clearly seen on his canvas 'the confidential conversation' from 1889 (see image on the right and link) which was sold at Dorotheum in 1994.
This painting is in spotless and excellent condition, as well as the frame.
