Camille Metra (xix-xx) - The Cup Of The King Of Thule - Oil - Signed

Camille METRA or METRA-HUBBARD
(XIX – XX)

The cup of the King of Thule

Oil on canvas
Signed lower right and dated
On the back stamp of the color merchant Hardy-Alan
113.5 x 146 cm
1896

Exhibited at the Salon de the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors of 1896 under number 627

Camille METRA exhibited two works at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts in 1895 under her maiden name METRA and a work at the same salon in 1896 under the name METRA -HUBBARD having married in second marriage Mr. Gustave HUBBARD, deputy of Seine and Oise (Pontoise) then of the Basses-Alpes (Sisteron), on August 14, 1895. She was a member of the Union of Women Painters and exhibited regularly at the annual salon of 1891 to 1911 where she was noticed several times This painting refers to a poem published in 1782 by Goethe and which he will use extensively in his Faust (part 1, lines 2759-82). This poem will be brought back into fashion in the romantic 19th century by various translations, the best known of which are by Gérard de Nerval (1827) and later by Louise Ackermann (1863). Frantz Schubert in 1816, Hector Berlioz in 1845 and Charles Gounod in 1859 would set this poem to music in their respective operas.