Portrait Of A Man By Joseph Wencker, Charcoal

Introduced to painting at the Strasbourg City Drawing School under Édouard Weissandt, he benefited from Jean-Léon Gérôme's classes at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1868 onwards. In 1876, he won the Grand Prix de Rome for his painting Priam Asking Achilles for Hector's Corpse. From 1873 to 1914, he exhibited in Paris, Strasbourg, and Mulhouse, accumulating awards and medals. He painted genre scenes, religious subjects, and portraits. In the 1880s, the publication of the SAF's illustrated catalogue required artists to send a drawing of the painting they wished to exhibit, so that an engraver could reproduce it in the catalogue. The drawing presented here is an autograph, executed by the painter after his own work. The drawing is signed with his initials in the lower right corner of the cloak.