François Simon (1818-1896) The Sheeps

Sheep, the specialty of the great Marseille animal artist François Simon.
The work carried out on cardboard, is in good condition, it measures in its gilded frame 37 cm by 53 and 25 cm by 40 cm without the frame.
It is signed lower right.
Modest and sincere artist, who, after having been Aubert’s student at the free drawing school in Marseille, asked Loubon to perfect him in the art he practiced as well as his profession as a hairdresser. Painting is my only happiness, he wrote naively in his plea.
Simon was 35 when at a trade show in Lyon his talent was appreciated by a wealthy amateur who helped and encouraged him until the end of his life. The animals he represented, sheep, goats, donkeys, are small portraits painted with true tenderness.
But he didn’t acquire a taste for movement and action from Loubon. His stable interiors by the diffusion of skilfully studied lighting will restore his best Paintings.
The Museum of Fine Arts of Marseille, of the Palais Longchamps, preserves of him:
two goats in the stable, on their way to the slaughterhouse (1859), Moutons aux pasturages (1864), Beliers and ewes in the Fours à Chaux valley (1878), as well as charcoal portraits.