Paul Guillot - The Servant's Judgment

Gabriel Paul GUILLOTReims, 1850 - 1914 The Pianist or The Servant's JudgmentOil on canvas65 x 81 cm (77.5 x 97 cm with frame)Signed and dated on the left "P. Guillot / 1880"Wax seal on the back
Painting exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1880 (number 1753. "The Servant's Oath")Beautiful carved oak frameVery good condition
Academic painter trained at the École des Beaux-Arts which preserves his fine academic studies. Paul Guillot was a student of Alexandre Cabanel there. He then exhibited portraits and history paintings (Cain, Burial of a Martyr, Ilyat in a Tent) at the Paris Salon in the 1870s. Here, he treats a genre scene as a history painting, where the maid and her broom pose as if she were about to judge the artist, here at work at the piano. Hence the title at the Salon des Artistes Français: "The Servant's Judgment"! The Ottawa Museum of Fine Arts holds another genre scene exhibited at the 1882 Salon des Beaux-Arts, "It's Always the Same Song," which also has the grandeur of a history painting—it was compared by a critic to Shakespeare's Ophelia. A very beautiful composition, an interior scene with many details, and an original and humorous painting!