Portrait of a lady - Sébastien NORBLIN de LA GOURDAINE (1796 – 1884)

Sébastien NORBLIN de LA GOURDAINE (Varsovie 1796 – 1884 Paris)
Portrait of a lady, Mrs. J.V or Mrs. E.B
Signed and dated NORBLIN 1836 lower left
Oil on original canvas, 86 x 69.5 cm

EXHIBITIONS
- Salon de Paris 1836, under n°1394 Portrait de Mme J.V, or under n°1395 Portrait de Mme E.B

BIOGRAPHY
Son of Jean-Pierre NORBLIN, his half-brothers are also artists: Louis Norblin was a musician and Alexandre-Jean-Constantin a sculptor. In 1804, the family moved to Paris, where the young artist trained with his father before entering the École des Beaux-Arts under François-André Vincent. A pupil of Régnault and Blondel, he won third prize in the 1822 competition for Rome and won first prize in 1825 with Antigone giving burial to Polynices, which brought him to the Villa Medici in Rome in 1826. to the Villa Medici in Rome, where he spent seven years drawing landscapes that he reinterpreted in his history paintings. On his return from Rome, he received a number of public commissions, became a teacher at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Second-class medal in 1833; first-class medal in class in 1844; Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur on 12 July 1859. He exhibited at the Salon with various themes
From 1827 to 1876, he produced history paintings under the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, rooted in classical culture. In 1842, for example, he exhibited a neo-Greek work entitled Greek Women at a Fountain. He also participated in the restoration of the Hôtel Lambert of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, alongside Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Eugène Delacroix, thanks to his links with the Polish diaspora in Paris, with whom he was very close. His works are particularly full of landscapes, sometimes fantastic and mystical, and historical, mythological or religious scenes, mythological or religious scenes. We owe him the decoration of the Chapel of the Compassion in the Saint-Roch church, the decoration of the Chapel of the Catholics in the Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas church and the paintings of two side chapels in the Saint-Louis de L'Isle church.