Armand Leleux - The Abbot's Servant

Armand LELEUXParis, 1818 – Dardagny (Switzerland), 1885The Abbot's ServantOil on canvas signed lower right "Armand Leleux"73.5 x 61 cm (87 x 70.5 cm with the frame)Painting exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1876
Very beautiful 19th century gilt wood frameVery good conditionYounger brother of Adolphe Leleux, also a painter, Armand Leleux is a genre painter, portraitist and landscaper of the 19th century realist school.Like his brother, Armand Leleux painted genre scenes in a realist style. But he also produced more intimate paintings representing interiors in a Flemish or Dutch style. For example: "Young little girl with a cup of chocolate" (Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology Joseph-Déchelette in Roanne) and "Interior of the kitchen of the castle of La Moustière" (Bertrand Museum of Châteauroux). He exhibited regularly at Parisian salons from 1839. A student of Ingres, trained in Rome where he went, he married the Genevan Émilie Giraud, also a genre painter. Armand Leleux is part of this first movement in the realist school which lets reality speak without putting itself forward so much by using his academic know-how to idealize in form. Armand Leleux is not only a Parisian painter. He also resided regularly in Dardagny near Geneva where he received his friends, among whom, Camille Corot, Théophile Gautier and Eugène Sue. He is the author of "Souvenirs d'artiste". Our painting represents a young girl with a feather duster, sitting in an armchair in a bourgeois interior. No doubt a maid of all work, she is resting or pining for her social situation. A true social portrait of the condition of children in the 19th century and at the same time a painting of an interior in the Flemish or Dutch tradition. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, the art critic Victor Cherbuliez wrote about the 1876 Salon: "Few artists know how to paint an interior as well as M. Armand Leleux and make us take all their subjects seriously, even a Priest's Servant, who, feather duster in hand, lounges in an armchair."