Eugene Lami - Country Party / Orgy - July Monarchy Period

Eugene-Louis Lami, known as Eugene Lami, was the first modern decorator of the French court in the 19th century. From the Orléans family to the Rothschilds, his ideas led him to create shimmering, polychrome scenes, a renowned watercolorist. Drawing on his experience acquired as a student of Horace Vernet, Antoine-Jean Gros and the watercolorist Bonnington, he began as a military painter during the Restoration. Then, becoming aware of the worldly atmosphere of English "country houses", this true dandy was spotted by King Louis-Philippe I in 1832 for his colorful creations and sets. He even went so far as to create the costumes for the ballet "Manon Lescaut" at the Paris Opera, then to do the scenography for Meyerbeer. His career well advanced, he then came to arrange the Tuileries Palace, the Chateau de Chantilly and the summer residences of the Pereire and Rothschilds like a true interior designer.

The work presented here is a small oil on canvas, comparable to a study for a larger work by its technique. The gilded wooden frame is damaged but nevertheless original Around 1830, Lami turned to social, aristocratic and bourgeois scenes. His most significant period mixing rural or outdoor subjects, parties, and oil on canvas, is around 1830-50. Indeed, it is the prosperous period of the ballets of the Paris Opera, and the canvas could be a sketch of a scene from Filippo Taglioni "La Sylphide" of 1832 although rather from Jean Coralli "L'Orgie" of 1831 we will see why later. Indeed, the transparent and puffy muslin dresses, related to the ancestor of the tutu, as well as the flower crowns called "sylph hats" on the heads of the women in the composition, are elements indicating a link with the ballroom scenes of Paris. One of the socialites on the right, her gaze absorbed by the man in the center, waves her fan with her right hand. The men each have a distinctive sign, from the musketeer goatee with a white wig to the black coat and wig symbolizing an austere legal or ecclesiastical profession. Several of the 13 characters hold glasses of champagne, one brandishing his bottle to signify his drunkenness. These efforts at costumes, this meeting at the edge of a forest, we are clearly in the presence of a play. At the feet of a dandy dressed all in yellow and shoes with pink buckles, a young greyhound is kept on a leash beside flowers scattered on the ground. The scene is almost orgiastic, far from everything, it would seem at the top of a hill and in the distance the sketched vision of a lake at the foot of its hill, it is therefore for this similarity that it would be interesting to attribute the decor to one of the acts of "The Orgy".

Signed E.LAMI for Eugene Lami on the lower right. On the back of the work, a collection stamp is visible, the LUGT.5113, that of Thierry Buscail, grandson of the painter Eugène Pujol, mentioning a previous provenance.


Exhibitions:

- Museum of Decorative Arts: Eugène Lami (1800-1890). First modern decorator from March 14 to April 2, 2023
https://madparis.fr/ExpoEugeneLami

- Chateau de Chantilly: Deldicque Mathieu, Eugène Lami painter and decorator of the Orléans family; [exhibition, Chantilly, Condé Museum, Chantilly estate, February 23 - May 19, 2019]
https://www.proantic.com/magazine/eugene-lami-peintre-et-decorateur-de-la-famille-dorleans/