Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Private collection, Canada
  
  Elizabeth Sonrel was the daughter of the painter Stephane Sonrel, from whom she received her early artistic guidance. To further her artistic studies she moved on to Paris where she became the pupil of the famous artist Jules Lefebvre at his Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
  
  Sonrel showed at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris 1893-1941. She specialised in large watercolours of idealised women that have both a certain Pre-Raphaelite intensity and an affinity to French Symbolist painting. She was inspired by medieval romance, legends and biblical subjects.
  
  Her painting Le Sommeil de la Vierge (1895) was well known in its time through reproductions and appeared in the Exposition Universelle in 1900. A number of her paintings including La Musique (Private collection, London), evoke the evanescent creatures of Art Nouveau from which she often adopted the adornments and jewellery. After 1900, she painted mainly portraits and picturesque Breton landscapes, and occasionally flowers.

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Category: Fine Art / 19th Century Paintings

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