Delphin Enjolras (1857-1945) - Jeune femme nue dans un décor orientaliste

Oil on canvas, signed lower right
Dimensions: H. 54 cm x W. 73 cm (with frame: H. 76.5 x W. 95.5 cm)

Delphin Enjolras was born in Ardèche in 1857. He showed an early aptitude for drawing. In 1882, he continued his studies in Puy-en-Velay. Three years later, he entered the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teacher was Gérôme, one of the greatest French orientalists of the second half of the 19th century. He also studied with watercolorist Gaston Gérard at the Paris drawing schools. In the 1890s, he moved to the South of France and quickly mastered the pastel technique for portraits of aristocratic ladies. His mastery of richly colored pastels earned him the nickname “painter of reflections”: lamp light, fireplace flames, the glow of illuminations. He enjoyed great success in France and abroad. Enjolras exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, becoming a member in 1901.

While Delphin Enjolras produced a large number of pastels, he also produced superb oil paintings, which are rarer and far more expensive than his pastels. A journalist writing about his work in 1900 said: “Enjolras' compositions, both in the charm of the subject and in the coloring, exude an impression of freshness and youth that only he can produce, and which are the cause of the favor with which they are received by those who love impeccable forms and beauty.”

This large-scale painting is a scene with an orientalist decor. While Enjolras left us a profusion of female portraits in bourgeois interiors, the artist also produced a few Orientalist scenes, as rare as they were highly appreciated. This superb nude has been created with particular attention to rich décor, oriental hangings, bearskin and the lovely composition of fruit on a tray. The languid posture and skin tone of the reclining young woman are remarkable. The effects of light and shadow on the body testify to Enjolras' immense talent, a talent that is unfortunately underestimated due to the sheer number of works produced in almost mass production and of relative interest.

The condition of this painting is perfect, it is on its original canvas and in a gilded wood Regency-style frame also in perfect condition.

Museums :
Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée in Marseille (MuCem),
Le Puy en Velay
Avignon
Museum of Fine-Arts, San Francisco
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