Paul Vayson (attr) - Shepherd With His Flock Of Sheep

A 19th-century romantic painting depicting a shepherd and his flock, attributed to Hippolyte Paul Vayson. Hippolyte Paul Vayson was a French painter and engraver born on December 4, 1841, in Gordes (Vaucluse). The son of a justice of the peace, Paul Vayson studied at the Lycée d'Avignon before becoming a lawyer in Paris. He began painting as a student of Charles Gleyre at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, then in the studio of Jules Laurens. His subjects and landscapes mainly illustrate rural Provence. He exhibited in 1865 at the Salon des Artistes Français, where he was awarded a medal in 1875 (the third year of his trip to Algeria) for his painting The Sheep Herder and in 1879 (a 2nd class medal) for The Sheep, a Provençal Landscape. That year, he had a private mansion built by the architect Paul Casimir Fouquiau at 13, rue Fortuny in Paris. He had a Parisian studio at 16, rue de Navarin. He was a member of the jury of the Salon des Artistes Français (painting section) and was promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor in 1886. He married Clotilde Polin in Lisieux on April 6, 1876, with whom he had two children. He was elected mayor of Murs (Vaucluse) from 1896, the year of the death of his brother who held this position, until his own death in 1911. A monument was inaugurated in his honor on September 18, 1913, in the Rocher des Doms garden in Avignon, in the presence of Frédéric Mistral. This work by the sculptor Félix Charpentier represents a bust of him with a shepherdess and her sheep. He owned the castles of Murs and Javon. His son was the prehistorian André Vayson de Pradenne. The canvas alone measures 61*43 cm and with its contemporary frame approximately 71*54 cm.