Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre (1824-1898)
La Générosité (Generosity)
1894
Oil and pencil on buff paper mounted on canvas, 142.2 × 284.5 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) was born in Lyon and only in 1847, after a first trip to Italy, studied for several months with Henri Scheffer (1798-1862) and subsequently with Louis Bauderon de Vermeron (1809-after 1870). Puvis exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1850 and developed a vocation for decorative works which would form an important part of his oeuvre. He had a great influence on his generation and the next generation of artists including Paul Gauguin and the Nabis up to Picasso and Matisse.
This painting is a preparatory study for a ceiling decoration in the Hotel de Ville in Paris and is one of his few works in a British public collection. It shows a half-nude female figure flanked by two angels and is an allegory of Generosity. With his simple broad planes and ethereal landscape, Puvis de Chavannes‘ oeuvre offered a fine example of the Symbolist art. (V&A)