Louis Emile Pinel De Grandchamps (1820-1894) Oriental beauty

Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamps (Paris, July 14, 1820 - Beaune, March 13, 1894), La Belle Orientale, oil on canvas, 35.5 x 27 cm
Signed lower right: “Pinel de Grandchamps”.

Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamps was a French Orientalist painter who enjoyed a flourishing career during his lifetime, leaving a varied oeuvre of Orientalist canvases and contemporary genre scenes, the rediscovery of which we can only welcome.
Our painting is one of the works inspired by Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamps' fifteen years in the Near East. After a full artistic apprenticeship in the studios of Hippolyte Dubois and Édouard Picot at the École des Beaux-Arts, he left Paris in 1849 for Egypt. He subsequently lived and worked in Tunis and Constantinople, where a prestigious clientele of beys, viceroys and high-ranking officials commissioned his portraits.
Back in France, from September 1865 onwards, Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamps painted charming Orientalist subjects, which were in vogue at the Salon des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was admitted the following year. For twenty years, he participated assiduously in the Salon's annual event, exhibiting his works from 1866 to 1889. Throughout his life, he also exhibited in regional capitals: at the Salons des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, Lyon, Dijon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Bordeaux and Rouen. From time to time, his works are exhibited at the European Salons in Brussels and Antwerp. In 1876, Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamp was considered one of the best representatives of French art by the organizing committee of the Fine Arts section of the Philadelphia World's Fair, which selected his Fantaisie Orientaliste. His name circulated in international artistic circles and his works were enthusiastically received by critics, appreciated for their effects of movement rendered through the plastic treatment of light. The numerous photographic reproductions published in the daily L'Art Contemporain and as carte-albums by the company Braun, Clément & Cie, successors and the publisher Adolphe Block testify to the high visibility of the works of Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamps and their circulation.

This portrait of a young Oriental woman is remarkable for the finesse of its execution. A soft light envelops the scene, skilfully outlining the facial features of this charming model. The young brunette woman with wavy hair is wearing a turban and a silky blouse with fine lace. The painter's skill lies in the choice of a brush-scrubbed, reddish-brown background. The emphasis is on the figure's luminosity, the sensuality of the pause
the sensuality of the pause and the preciousness of the description of the accessories.
The young woman leans against an octagonal black and gold lacquered wooden box. Framed by decorative bands, figures in traditional Chinese costumes are depicted
architecture. This type of lacquered box was produced in Canton in the 19th century, to special order by European customers. The subject matter of these Chinese boxes, specifically intended for the export market, was perceived as typically oriental by connoisseurs of so-called exotic objects. Many museums, such as the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, preserve fine specimens.