Portrait Of A Child With A Hat, By Paul Langlois 1881

Paul Langlois, portrait of a child with a red feather hat, 1871
Oil on canvas signed and dated top left: Paul Langlois and 1881 on the right
In its period frame in wood and gilded stucco Dimensions with frame 80x70 cm
Very good general condition.

This delightful portrait of a young child with already serious features and a pensive gaze testifies to the bourgeois taste of the Second Empire and the nascent Third Republic for careful representations of childhood. Dressed in a black suit with a wide white lace collar, and wearing a hat adorned with what appears to be a red rose, the child is depicted against a plain brown background, in a refined composition that exalts the softness of the face and the richness of the textiles. The quality of execution - particularly in the rendering of the skin tones, eyes and lace - reveals the hand of an experienced portraitist, faithful to the academic aesthetic of his time Paul Langlois (1858-1906), still little known to the general public, belongs to this generation of talented regional or Parisian painters, often trained in official workshops but remaining on the margins of the major artistic scenes. He was trained by the painter Alexandre Cabanel in Paris and exhibited at the Salin from 1876 to 1906