Georges Marie Girardot (1856-1914) - Mermaid In The Mirror, 1911

Georges Marie Girardot (1856-1914)
Mermaid At The Mirror, 1911
Oil on panel
55 x 43 cm
66.5 x 78 cm with frame
Signed and dated lower left 
Exhibition label and title on the back Société des Beaux Arts de Nice

Georges Girardot is a painter born August 4, 1856 in Besançon and died in 1914. Trained in Paris by the painter Albert Maignan, associate member of the Academy of Sciences, Belles Lettres and Arts of Besançon and Franche-Comté from 1907 to 1914 , a member of French Artists since 1883, Girardot mainly exhibited genre scenes at the Salon. At the Salon of 1890, he illustrated a Franche-Comté custom with Les Révérences à la lune (Crépuscule)(Anonymous sale, Paris, Sotheby's, June 25, 2008, n°123) where young women in reverence before the moon hoped to see in the reflection water the face of their future husband (“Lune, Belle Lune, Claire Lune / In this mirror, let me see / The husband that I must have”). Girardot was awarded several medals (Honourable Mention in 1893, third class medal in 1896, second class medal in 1907). The studio collection presented in this sale illustrates the artist's predilection for village scenes (Before the wedding; Market scene in Pesmes; Allegory of the Four Seasons). For his painting entitled Avant la noce, Girardot captures on the spot the effervescence of a village preceding a wedding. He also painted more intimate scenes (Sunday toilet), portraits (La Embroiderer; Portrait of Jean Girardot) but also still lifes (Composition with soup tureen; Composition with flayed skin and triptych; Composition with antique bust ). These genre scenes rub shoulders with creations inspired by biblical and mythological subjects. The sirens, the nymphs or even Adam, painted on large formats, evolve in an omnipresent nature, both realistic and timeless. If Georges Girardot can adopt a tight framing on his characters, like the Lumberjack, his figures are distinguished by a sculptural treatment which gives them a majesty that reinforces the realism of the features. The destitution and sobriety of certain scenes give the subject a superior dimension. The fisherman's family carries a biblical resonance and is reminiscent of The Poor Fisherman by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1881, Paris, Musée d'Orsay).