Oil On Panel In The Antique Style - Late 19th Century.

Small oil painting on panel after the work by Charles-François Jalabert (1819-1901) Horace, Virgile et Varius chez Mécène currently on display at the Musée des Beaux Arts de Nîmes.
Presented in a charming wood and gilded stucco frame.
French work from the late 19th century.
Unsigned.

Dimensions of the painting alone: 11.8x17 cm.
Dimensions with frame: 21.5x27 cm.

(Yellowed varnish, a few holes, to be restored).

The Antique scene depicts the classical poet Virgil (left) reading his Georgics in the company of Horace on his left, Varius in the background and Virgil's patron Maecenas on the right in an architectural landscape depicting the garden of his villa on the Esquiline in Rome. The work illustrates the famous "Circle of Maecenas", a wealthy advisor to Emperor Augustus and patron of the arts.

This painting, the original of which was painted by Jalabert in 1846 while in Rome, was a huge success at the 1847 Salon. It helped fix in the collective imagination the image of "gilded intellectual life" under Antiquity, a vision that appealed enormously to the cultivated bourgeoisie of the 19th century.

Far from being a mere historical scene, the work is a celebration of Humanism. It shows that the strength of a civilization lies not only in its military conquests (while Augustus' reign is marked by the Pax Romana), but in its ability to produce thought and beauty.