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Lot Essay
Alexandre-Louis Leloir hailed from a family of painters and while he received no formal training, he received most of his instruction from his father Jean-Baptiste Auguste Leloir. His grandfather was the famed history painter Alexandre Colin. He began exhibiting early in his career, first in Rome in 1861 where he won second prize and subsequently in Paris at the Salons of 1864 and 1868. Around 1868 Leloir shifted his focus from history painting to genre painting and his palette was imbued with more vibrant colors.
The present work highlights Leloir's talent for mixing color and texture. In A Musical Interlude, one of Leloir's few Orientalist works, the viewer is drawn into a luxurious interior where an elegant black slave woman reclines on a velvet chaise while a young girl serenades her with a song. Particularly beautiful passages include the glittering green turban and the intense yellow silk skirt. These Nubian women featured prominently in the work of many Orientalist artists including Jean-Léon Gérôme, Ferdinand Roybet and Paul-Louis Bouchard. It is known that these domestics were better protected by the law and more independent than the concubines of large harems.
The present work highlights Leloir's talent for mixing color and texture. In A Musical Interlude, one of Leloir's few Orientalist works, the viewer is drawn into a luxurious interior where an elegant black slave woman reclines on a velvet chaise while a young girl serenades her with a song. Particularly beautiful passages include the glittering green turban and the intense yellow silk skirt. These Nubian women featured prominently in the work of many Orientalist artists including Jean-Léon Gérôme, Ferdinand Roybet and Paul-Louis Bouchard. It is known that these domestics were better protected by the law and more independent than the concubines of large harems.