Jules Aviat (1844-1931) Portrait Of A Pastel Couple Périgueux Bordeaux

Jules AVIAT
(Brienne le Château 1844 – Périgueux 1931)
Portrait of a couple
Pastel
H. 74 cm; L. 92 cm
Signed lower left

Jules Aviat, was born under the name of Mauperrin, a modest Champagne family. At the age of ten he lost his father and saw his mother remarry Mr. Aviat, whose name he added to that of his birth. For the arts, he opted for his adopted surname from the start. His father-in-law's brother, Auguste Louis Aviat, 1819-1876, was a landscape painter, draftsman and photographer, which is perhaps what steered Jules towards a career as a painter under the name of his father-in-law. Aviat studied in Rome from 1867 to 1870, where he met Ernest Hébert. In Paris, he passed through the workshops of Carolus Duran and the portraitist Léon Bonnat. He collaborated with the latter on the fresco of the Martyrdom of Saint Denis in the Pantheon and with Ernest Hébert on that of the apse. He exhibited regularly at the Salon of French Artists and presented works at the Universal Exhibitions of 1900 and 1910. Jules Aviat produced a very large number of paintings, landscapes, still lifes and especially portraits. It was a choice corresponding to his personal taste and his training but also, this activity being lucrative, to have the means to devote time to the more ambitious works that he proposed each year at the Salons of 1876 and 1924. Passionate painter, he traveled a lot, especially in the United States where he worked as a portrait painter for almost 3 years. At the end of his life, retired to Périgueux, he continued to paint many portraits as well as landscapes. The couple portrait that we present is a wonderful piece made in pastel with all the reality of the skin tones that this material allows. The young woman presented in front in her soft bluish silk outfit, opts for a vague gaze, targeting below the viewer's eyes. Her husband, who stands back like a guard to his wife's person, looks to the side. This fact is rare. Usually, the models look together towards the same target, and in general the person who is in front of the table. Arranged on canvas, this paper was not cut where the artist had delimited it, but it was put on a stretcher by the Imberti house in Bordeaux, whose stamp seems to correspond to the period of creation of the work. . This aspect of non finito must have seduced the couple represented who wanted to keep the work as such.