Large Portrait By Benjamin-constant Of His Friend Paul David End XIX Table Oil On Canvas

Large portrait by François Jean Baptiste Benjamin Constant called Benjamin-Constant (1845 1902)
Portrait of Paul David
Oil on canvas 73 cm x 50 cm
Dedicated upper right "to my friend Paul David" Signed and dated "Benjamin Constant 1896"
in its original frame original with a cartouche of the painter's name
Vers good condition.

A pupil of Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, to which he succeeded as a teacher, Benjamin Constant was initially renowned for his orientalist subjects, then as one of the favorite portrait painters of French and British high society in the end of the 19th century.

His first orientalist style was influenced by Eugène Delacroix and by his stay in Tangier in Morocco in 1870 with the painters Georges Clairin and Henri Regnault. The same year, he returned to France and took part in the Franco-Prussian war. Until 1889, he exhibited paintings of orientalist inspiration at the Paris Salon which were very successful.
He then turned to portraiture and decoration, often monumental. In this latter area, we owe him in particular the wall of the Salle des Illustres du Capitole de Toulouse, the ceilings of the town hall of Paris and the national theater of the Opéra-Comique, as well as several murals in the hall of the Academic Council of the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1888 he succeeded Gustave Boulanger as a teacher at the Académie Julian. The following year, he received the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He was elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1893 and is honorary president of the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Orientalist Painters with Jean-Léon Gérôme.

In 1896, he won the gold medal at the Paris Salon for his work Portrait of my son André. He is frequently requested for portraits and notably painted those of Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII. Our portrait dated 1896 is part of that part of his career as a portrait painter during which he was very successful.

The works of Benjamin Constant appear in all the 19th century collections of the great French museums: Musée d'Orsay Paris,Petit palais Paris,Musée Condé in Chantilly, Musée Fabre Montpellier, Musée des Augustins Toulouse, Musée des beaux art de Lille, Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux, Versailles, Pau , Narbonne, quai branly, Nantes.
Also in North American collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts