Attributed To Victor Orsel (1795-1850) The Apostles

Attributed to Victor Orsel (1795-1850), The Apostles after Perugino's The Ascension, oil on canvas, 54 x 46 cm, annotated "Orsel" on the reverse. Giltwood frame, framed dimensions 69 x 60 cm.
This painting is a copy of a detail from Perugino's "The Ascension," held at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. The arrival of Perugino's painting in Lyon in 1811 had a lasting impression on Révoil's students, including Orsel (G. Chomer). In 1828, Orsel, on his way to Paris, stopped in Lyon with his friend Alphonse Périn. The copies of details they made at that time testify to their fascination with the Italian primitives, as shown in a drawing by Périn from this stay, now in the Louvre Museum. In this regard, the description states:
"The three lower figures, 'Saint Paul' and the 'Apostles', were added a few weeks later, during the two friends' stay in Lyon, on their way to Paris. These figures are in fact taken from the altarpiece of the Ascension by Pietro Perugino, kept in the Lyon museum, one of the essential sources of Lyonnais (and assimilated) Pre-Raphaelitism. This is one of the most significant examples of these copies after the primitives, so widespread throughout the 19th century, but of which Périn and Orsel were the first to provide systematic series."