Adolphe Félix CALS - Portrait de Mademoiselle Jenny Godin

Adolphe-Felix CALS Paris, 1810 – Honfleur, 1880 Oil on canvas 45 x 38 cm (69 x 63 cm with frame) Signed and dated on the right "Cals / 1879" Label on the back mentioning the model "Jenny Godin" Beautiful 19th century oval frame in carved, decorated and gilded wood This is the portrait of Jenny Godin, the daughter of the sculptor Eugène Godin who, moreover, exhibited the plaster portrait of his daughter at the Paris Salon in 1882. Jenny Godin, born Oursel, was from a Norman family and it is perhaps -being in this region where Adoplhe -Félix Cals settled that the latter knew her. Miss Jenny Godin was a renowned pianist who played at Broustet concerts and at the Salle Pleyel in particular. For example, she played the gavottes for piano in C minor (R 31) by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) (first performance) in Paris, Salle Pleyel on February 22, 1879. Our painting is dated 1879. Cals is a pre-impressionist painter who settled in Honfleur and painted genre scenes and landscapes in this region; but also portraits, of his relatives in particular and of the inhabitants of the Honfleur region. We find in his portraits these qualities that made him successful, this very sensitive rendering of the material, this characteristic, vibrant touch which knows how to bring life and which has been described as pre-impressionist !