George Roux - Portrait Of A Child As A Sailor

Alexandre-Georges ROUX, known as George ROUX
Ganges (Hérault), 1853 - Versailles, 1929
Portrait of a child as a little sailor
Oil on wood panel
27 x 21 cm (42 x 36 cm with frame)
Signed lower right and dated upper right "AGRoux / Décembre 1895"
Very fine gilded wood frame from the XIXth century with foliage and palmettes decoration
Very good condition

Visible at the gallery

Georges is considered a Bitterois painter although he also lived in Versailles as he spent part of his life in Béziers. He studied with Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Paul Laurens at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From 1880, he exhibited works in the academic tradition at the Salon des Artistes Français. He cultivated all genres, from history to portraiture, landscape and genre scenes.
George Roux is also known as a decorator. In the stairwell of a private mansion on the Allées Paul Riquet, he painted scenes reminiscent of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. From 1914 to 1918, he took part in the panorama of the "Pantheon of War", a monumental work now in the United States.
But George Roux is best known as an illustrator. His name is linked to that of Jules Verne and publisher Pierre Jules Hetzel, who published the entire "Voyages Extraordinaires" series. Hetzel called on established artists such as George Roux, Edouard Riou, Léon Bennet and Alphonse de Neuville to illustrate these novels.
Georges Roux's works are today mainly in private collections, many of them in Paris and Versailles with his descendants.
A retrospective exhibition was organized at the Musée des Beau-Arts in Béziers in 2012/2013.
Our painting comes from a private collection in Versailles. It is a small portrait, very well done, of a child named "Jacques". It dates from 1895. He wears the costume of a little sailor. And it's probably a portrait of a relative. George Roux also liked to depict children, who were the subject of several paintings (the lesson, the children and the doll, the construction game...). He also regularly painted scenes of places, such as this "Dimanche à la plage" (Sunday at the beach) from 1892, with multiple characters.