Catherine LUSURIER (1752-1781). - Lot 17

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  3. Catherine LUSURIER (1752-1781). - Lot 17
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Lot n° 17
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20000 - 30000 EUR
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Result : 161 200EUR
Catherine LUSURIER (1752-1781). - Lot 17
Catherine LUSURIER (1752-1781). The Young Schoolboy. Oil on canvas. 56 x 46 cm. (missing). Note: Our painting can be compared with the portrait of a young artist, sold at Christie's in New York, May 20, 2025, no. 14, reproduced. Catherine LUSURIER trained in the studio of painter Hubert DROUAIS (1699-1767), whose niece by marriage she was. After his death, she continued her training with his son, François Hubert (1727-1775), in the same family studio, also frequented by Jean Germain DROUAIS, the grandson. In various documents, she is listed as living in rue des Ortyes, parish of Saint Roch in Paris, in the house purchased by Hubert DROUAIS in 1736. At the age of eighteen, she painted a portrait long considered to be that of d'Alembert, and which is one of her first two known signed works, testimony to her precocious talent (now in the Carnavalet museum). The real portrait of d'Alembert, dated 1777, appeared later (also in the Musée Carnavalet). He is credited with the portrait of a famous woman of the time, Madame de BURE, and his daughter Charlotte Françoise. The corpus of his works is fairly limited, due to his death at the age of twenty-eight, and the fact that his works are attributed to DROUAIS fils or even LÉPICIÉ. Only twenty-one works recognized as being by her hand were listed in 2001 by Helen ASHMORE (see "Catherine LUSURIER (1752-1781): A woman painter in eighteenth century Paris", Apollo, pp. 34-40). The influence of François Hubert DROUAIS is evident in her work, both stylistically and in her choice of subjects, and it is likely that she began by copying many of his paintings. The little draughtsman, or schoolboy "en polisson", was one of her favorite subjects. It was also a popular theme throughout the 18th century, exploited by renowned artists such as CHARDIN, LÉPICIÉ, Madame VIGÉE-LEBRUN and DROUAIS himself. Although the theme of the small draftsman appeared in the second quarter of the 18th century, it only really became a fashionable subject from 1760 onwards. A French specificity, it lies between portraiture and genre scenes. Most of the models are unidentifiable. It was under this iconography that Catherine LUSURIER painted one of her rare signed portraits, the effigy of her little cousin Jean Germain DROUAIS at the age of fifteen, now in the Louvre. For a time, this portrait was wrongly attributed to François Hubert DROUAIS, who had been dead for three years in 1778. Catherine LUSURIER also painted a female version, La petite dessinatrice, now in the Bremen Kunsthalle. Expert : René MILLET
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