Louise Abbéma (1853-1927) was a French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque (considered to be from the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 to WWI.)
Louise Abbéma was born into a wealthy Parisian family, who were well connected in the local artistic community. Louise could boast of a prestigious lineage. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Comte Louis de Narbonne. It was whispered that the Count was a royal bastard, the illegitimate son of Louis XV, no less. In his turn Louis de Narbonne, also out of wedlock —with Louise Contat, a famed French actress— had a daughter. This daughter was Louise Abbema’s grandmother, also an actress who married a Dutch noble man with Javanese blood in his veins, Jan Abbema. Hence probably Louise’s slightly oriental looks.
Her romantic paintings are in stark contrast with Louise’s stern and masculine appearance. A simple straight skirt was the only concession to her sex. Her clothes had a virile cut. Furthermore, a waist coat, a cravat, a pocket watch, a white shirt with starch standing collar and a silk pocket handkerchief were signs that the wearer belonged to the lesbian sorority. Nevertheless Louise herself denied wearing masculine clothing.
She began painting in her early teens, and studied under such notables of the period as Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran. She first received recognition for her work at age 23 when she painted a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, her lifelong friend and possibly her lover.
She went on to paint portraits of other contemporary notables, and also painted panels and murals which adorned the Paris Town Hall, the Paris Opera House, numerous theatres including the “Theatre Sarah Bernhardt”, and the “Palace of the Colonial Governor” at Dakar, Senegal. She had an academic and impressionistic style, painting with light and rapid brushstrokes.
She was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon, where she received an honorable mention for her panels in 1881. Louise was also among the female artists whose works were exhibited in the Women’s Building at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A bust Sarah Bernhardt sculpted of Louise was also exhibited at the exposition.
Abbéma specialized in oil portraits and watercolors, and many of her works showed the influence from Chinese and Japanese painters, as well as contemporary masters such as Édouard Manet. She frequently depicted flowers in her works. Among her best-known works are The Seasons, April Morning, Place de la Concorde, Among the Flowers, Winter, and portraits of actress Jeanne Samary, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, Ferdinand de Lesseps (diplomat) and Charles Garnier (architect).
Louise was also an accomplished printmaker, sculptor, and designer, as well as a writer who made regular contributions to the journals Gazette des Beaux-Arts and L’Art. She also illustrated several books.
Among the many honors conferred upon Abbéma was Palme Academiques in 1887, given to distinguished academics and figures in the world of culture and education and nomination as “Official Painter of the Third Republic (which is how France was known after the Franco-Prussian war). She was also awarded a bronze medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World fair in Paris). In 1906 she was decorated as Chevalier of the Order of the Légion d’honneur, the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits.
Louise died in Paris in 1927. At the end of the 20th century, as contributions by women to the arts in past centuries received more critical and historical attention, her works have been enjoying a renewed popularity. She was also included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850-1900.
Sources at wiki. and blog.imagesmusicales.be/louise-abbema-quaint-flower-of-the-belle-epoque/ View Louise Abbema’s 36 works at wiki art.
Leave a Reply, you know you want to! ツ