Gonzalès, Eva (1849-1883)
La Servante ou À la barrière (The Servant or At the Fence)
c.1865–1870
Oil on canvas, 41 x 32.5 cm
Petit Palais, Paris
Regularly featured among the Impressionist women, Éva Gonzalès was Édouard Manet‘s only student, with whom she maintained an exceptional artistic relationship and whose vision of innovative painting she shared. The Petit Palais museum, which previously owned no other works by this artist, recently acquired the painting entitled “La Servante ou A la barrière” (The Servant or At the Fence) at a public auction.
Small in format and somewhat sketchy, this charming work depicts a woman strolling, holding a wide-brimmed sun hat adorned with flowers and ribbons, leaning against a fence. The figure stands out against a partially unpainted background, onto which the artist has added vibrant touches to suggest vegetation. The face, clothing, and surroundings are rendered with a delicate, light touch, in a harmony of blues and greens punctuated only by the yellow of the hat and the red of the flowers that can be glimpsed on it and in the background. This fresh and subtle style, as well as its unfinished quality, seems to us today to echo the fragile life of the artist, who died at the age of 34, shortly after giving birth to her son in 1883.
The Petit Palais museum boasts a collection of Impressionist paintings, including works by women artists: this acquisition joins the works of Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, and Berthe Morisot. The museum also possesses a magnificent, large full-length portrait of Éva Gonzalès‘ husband, the engraver Henri Guérard, by Jacques-Émile Blanche (1889), as well as 15 prints by Guérard. The Petit Palais also holds a collection of paintings, drawings, and engravings by Charles Chaplin, Gonzalès‘s first teacher. To complete this overview of Éva Gonzalès‘s circle, one should also mention the painted portrait of Théodore Duret by Manet, one of the jewels of the Petit Palais collection, as well as a small series of prints by this artist. (Petit Palais)