Gustave Boulanger
THE RETURN, HAGAR AND ISHMAEL, 1871
Oil on canvas
17 3/4 x 27 1/4 inches
Private collection
Hagar is a biblical person in the Book of Genesis Chapter 16. She was an Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, who gave her to Abraham "to wife" to bear a child. The product of the union was Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael, the progenitor of the Ishmaelites.
After Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and the tension between the women returned. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah found the teenage Ishmael mocking her son, and demanded that Abraham send Hagar and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed but God told Abraham to do as his wife commanded because God's promise would be carried out through both Isaac and Ishmael.
The name Hagar originates from the Book of Genesis, and is only alluded to in the Qur'an. She is considered Abraham's second wife in the Islamic faith and acknowledged in all Abrahamic faiths. In mainstream Christianity, she is considered a concubine to Abraham. More on Hagar
Years later, however, we find Ishmael back in the Abrahamic fold, accompanying Abraham and Isaac to the akeidah. And then, three years after Sarah's death, Abraham remarries Hagar. The reconciliation is now complete—indeed it is Sarah's son, Isaac, who brings Hagar back for her marriage with his father. More on the return
Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (25 April 1824–22 September 1888) was a French figure painter and Academic artist and teacher known for his Classical and Orientalist subjects.
Boulanger was born in Paris in 1824. He never knew his father, and when his mother's death left him orphaned at the age of fourteen, he became the ward of his uncle, Constant Desbrosses, who in 1840 sent him to study first under the history painter Pierre-Jules Jollivet and then at the atelier of Paul Delaroche, where Boulanger met and befriended his fellow student Jean-Léon Gérome.
Gustave Boulanger
Caritas Romana - The Roman Charity Cimon and Péro, c. 1841
Oil on canvas
60 x 73 cm
Private collection
Roman Charity (Carità Romana) is the exemplary story of a woman, Pero, who secretly breastfeeds her father, Cimon, after he is incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation. More on Roman Charity
The theme was part of the historical, social reality of the time. The 17th century has indeed generated the vogue of charitable activities. Charitable institutions have multiplied. The rich devoted themselves to assisting the poor. In such an ideology, giving one's breast became the symbol of charity and giving to others, the poor and the hungry. Giving breast to one's father expresses mercy and dedication. It is a Victory over oneself and the transgression of the law which forbids any carnal contact between a father and his own daughter. This transgression is sanctified by parental love. More on this painting
Boulanger and Gérome would become leading lights of the Néo-Grec movement in French art, which revisited the fascination of previous generations for the Classical world, but brought to its austere subject matter subversive touches of whimsy, sensuality, and eroticism. "When they appear on the contemporary art scene, the Néo-Grecs will be defended as rejuvenators of the Classical tradition by some, condemned as gravediggers of history painting by others…they rarely give an orthodox image of Antiquity, some, like Gérôme, Boulanger and Hamon, not hesitating to choose licentious subjects, to parody mythological characters, or to invent very personal allegories of Antiquity."
Gustave Boulanger
Summer Breeze
Oil on canvas
55 x 32 1/2 in
Private collection
Gustave Boulanger
Saint Pierre chez Marie, c. 1848,
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Gustave Boulanger
Ulysse reconnu par Euryclée/ Ulysses recognized by Euryclée, c. 1849
Oil on canvas
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
In 1848 and 1849, he shared communal living and working quarters with other artists of the Néo-Grec movement at the Chalet, 27 rue de Fleurus. The group also gathered at the atelier of Gérôme on rue de Sevres. Boulanger turned his efforts to winning the Prix de Rome, and with it, a scholarship to the Académie de France à Rome. In 1848, he obtained second place with Saint Pierre chez Marie (See above), and the next year he won the Grand Prix with Ulysse reconnu par Euryclée (See above) and departed for Rome, where he would remain until 1855. His education and research included study at the excavations of Pompeii. He also traveled to Greece.
Each year, the students at Rome sent back to the Academy in Paris a painting to demonstrate their progress, and for public exhibition; Boulanger's works repeatedly disappointed the Academy and scandalized critics, beginning with the first, Phryné, in 1850 (See below).
Gustave-Clarence-Rodolphe Boulanger
Phryne, c. 1850
Oil on canvas
141,3 x 107,9 cm
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum
Gustave Boulanger
Jules-César arrivé au Rubicon, c. 1854
Oil on canvas
312 x 300 cm
Musée Picardie, Amiens, France.
Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1857.
From 59 BC J.-C., the Rubicon served as the border between Roman Italy and the province of Cisalpine Gaul. It had a very particular resonance in Roman law because no general had the authorization to cross it with armed soldiers. The law thus protected Rome from internal military threats.
It became famous when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his armed legions on January 11, 49 BC in the footsteps of Pompey , thus violating the law of the Roman Senate. When crossing the river he launched the famous formula: Alea jacta est , literally "the dice are cast", sometimes translated as "the lot is cast" or "the lot is cast".
From this episode was born the expression "to cross the Rubicon" which has survived to the present day. It evokes a person embarking on a business with risky consequences without being able to reverse. More on this painting
In 1856, when his studies at Rome were complete, Boulanger took a second trip to North Africa, and then returned to Paris. Boulanger moved into his own atelier at rue de La Rochefoucauld, 64, but continued to meet and socialize with the other Néo-Grecs. He became one of Jean-Léon Gérôme's closest friends; after 1863, Gérôme regularly entrusted him with the management of his studio at the École des Beaux-Arts during his travels in the East.
Gustave-Clarence-Rodolphe Boulanger (French 1824-1888)
Catherine I of Russia negotiating the Treaty of Prut with the Turks, c. 1866
Oil on canvas laid down on panel
67 x 49 7/8 in. (170.2 x 126.7 cm.
Private collection
The narrative of the present work is drawn from the events following Peter the Great's defeat at the hand of the Ottoman general and Vizier Baltaci Mehmet Pasha at Pruth in July 1711. Historians remain baffled as to why the Turks did not press home their victory with a more onerous peace treaty. Instead of taking Peter captive, they contented themselves with a truce. According to legend, Mehmet surrounded Peter's army but saved him further humiliation because he was persuaded by a secret nocturnal visit to his tent by the czar's mistress (later empress) Catherine.
The present work was commissioned directly from the artist by the German aristocrat and diplomat, Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, as part of a series of decorations for his new hôtel particulier on the Champs Elysées. The painting portrays his mistress, the notorious society courtesan Theresa Lachmann (better known as "La Païva"). More on this painting
During the Franco-Prussian War, when the enemy forces approached Paris in 1870, like many of the artists who stayed in Paris, having neither enlisted in the army nor fled abroad, Boulanger became a member of the National Guard, joining ranks with his friend Charles Garnier, as well as Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Rodin, and Louis Émile Benassit.
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
Épisode de la Commune, place de la Concorde/ Episode of the Municipality, Place de la Concorde, c. 1871
Oil on canvas
Height: 64.5 cm (25.3 in); Width: 80 cm (31.4 in)
Musée Carnavalet
As normal life and all previous projects came to a stop, Boulanger painted a series of works documenting the momentous events (See above). These scenes of fire and carnage, quite unlike anything else in his oeuvre, are in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet.
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
A Summer Repast at the House of Lucullus at Tusculum, c. 1877
Oil on canvas
height:13 cm / 44.5 inches, width: 158 cm / 62.2 inches
Private collection
The painting depicts six figures, five male and one female, reclining on their fronts, and enjoying the great feast that is placed before them. One man, at the end of the table, holds out his goblet for more wine, which is poured by a young boy. Other figures, holding wine vessels and fans, stand nearby. This scene takes place beneath a gold-coloured, tasseled fabric canopy.
A young woman performs a dance for the group, while holding a wooden percussion instrument in her right hand. She wears a diaphanous white dress, which reveals the beautiful curves of her nude body. In the right foreground, six musicians stand.
The host of this feast, Lucius Licinius Lucullus (118-56BC), was a politician and military figure of the late Roman Republic. Lucullus famously retired to a life of luxury and ease, facilitated by the money he had gained from war in the East. More on this painting
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
Galathée et le berger Athis/ Galatea and the Shepherd Acis, c. 1860
Oil on parquet panel,
35 x 27 cm (13.78 x 10.63 in.)
Private collection
Acis and Galatea are characters from Greek mythology later associated together in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The episode tells of the love between the mortal Acis and the Nereid (sea-nymph) Galatea; when the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus kills Acis, Galatea transforms her lover into an immortal river spirit. The episode was made the subject of poems, operas, paintings, and statues in the Renaissance and after. More on this painting
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
Hercules at the feet of Omphale, c. 1861
Oil On Canvas
Private collection
There are many late Hellenistic and Roman references in texts and art to Heracles being forced to do women's work and even wear women's clothing and hold a basket of wool while Omphale and her maidens did their spinning. Omphale even wore the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried Heracles' olive-wood club. More on this painting
Boulanger would continue to evoke the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans throughout his career. Noting his deep research and attention to detail, one critic called him "a scholar at least as much as a virtuoso." Many of these paintings are in private collections, and some are known only from written descriptions or from lithographs or other reproductions of the originals.
Like his friend Gérôme, Boulanger would also paint Orientalist subjects throughout his career, drawing inspiration from his travels in North Africa.
Gustave Boulanger
El Hiasseub, Conteur arabe/ Arab storyteller, c. 1868
Oil on canvas
22 x 31 in. (56 x 78.5 cm.)
Private collection
El Hiasseub, conteur arabe epitomizes the truly classical Orientalist painting tradition. The detailing is astonishing. For instance, ironically, one finds an intensely studied and precise rendition of spontaneity in the undone shoelaces of the young man lying on his stomach, and in the frozen expression of distraction of the man seated on his left. Using his mastery of classical compositional techniques, Boulanger makes all the figures in the painting interact with each other while organizing them in strict geometrical groups. This work, in which the almost photographic reality of the pictorial technique contrasts so perfectly with the unfamiliar 'Oriental' subject matter, creates that peculiar fascinating effect that is characteristic of a true masterpiece of the genre. More on this painting
Boulanger produced one of his most famous paintings near the end of his life, shown at the Paris Salon of 1886: Un Maquignon d’esclaves à Rome (A Slave Dealer in Rome) (See below), which has become better known as The Slave Market. A "pendant" painting, Esclaves à vendre (Slaves for Sale) (See below), followed in 1888 and was to be Boulanger's last exhibited painting.[20] Though set in the ancient Roman world, these paintings are stylistically closer to Boulanger's Orientalist works.
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
Le Marché aux esclaves/ The Slave Market, c. 1886
Oil on canvas
Height: 77.5 cm (30.5 in); Width: 99 cm (38.9 in)
Private collection
Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888)
Esclaves à vendre, c. 1888
I have no further description, at this time
Because museums preferred to collect his Classical subjects, Boulanger's Orientalist works were for a long time less well known, but in the 21st-century art market they are more sought after and bring higher prices.
Gustave-Clarence-Rodolphe Boulanger, French, 1824-1888
THE FLOWERGIRL, c. 1888
Oil on canvas
140 by 82 cm.
Private collection
Though less known for his portraiture, Boulanger painted and drew portraits throughout his career.
On the evening of Friday, 21 September 1888, Boulanger suffered a pulmonary congestion, took to bed, and died the next day.
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