Voillemot Dancer With A Tambourine, Esmeralda, Important Oil On Canvas Signed Ac. Voillemot

This Orientalist-style work by André-Charles Voillemot depicts a woman in luxurious, flowing clothing adorned with jewelry, including a magnificent three-strand pearl necklace and large hoop earrings. The fabrics used for her garments are intricately worked and of high quality. She holds a tambourine in her right hand. This could be the Esmeralda evoked in a composition and style very close to the watercolor that served as the basis for the illustration of the drama from Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris," which is part of the collection of the writer's house in Guernsey. André-Charles Voillemot (1822-1893), a French painter born in Paris, was a student of Michel-Martin Drolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He exhibited at the Salon from 1845, won a silver medal in 1870, and was awarded the Legion of Honor the same year. He depicts women in settings typical of the Second Empire, specializing in slightly veiled female figures, illustrating allegories or literary subjects. As part of the reconstruction of the theater at the Château de Fontainebleau, he created allegories of Poetry, Music, Fame, and the Genius of the Arts. Esmeralda, a watercolor preserved in the collections of Hauteville House, Victor Hugo's home in Guernsey, served as the illustration for the libretto of "La Esmeralda," a drama adapted from the novel "Notre-Dame de Paris" and published by Hughes between 1880 and 1882.