FERNAND CORMON (1845-1924) LARGE OIL ON CANVAS

FERNAND CORMON (1845-1924) LARGE OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED 1901, FRENCH. Title: "Woman in an Interior", Signature: Signed & dated 1901 lower left, Provenance: Private US collection. An outstanding large signed and dated 1901 oil by Fernand Cormon depicting a young girl seated in an interior of a kitchen. She is preparing vegetables as light streams through a window high on the exterior wall. The kitchen is filled with objects and the work is beautifully coloured and detailed. The artist is highly collected and was a master of his art and a professor to many of his times generation of important painters. About Artist: Fernand Cormon studied in Brussels under Portaels and then in Paris under Cabanel and Fromentin. He made his Paris Salon debut in 1863 and was awarded a medal in 1870, a silver in 1873 and an honorary medal in 1887, together with a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1878. Cormon received the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur in 1880 and was made a Commandeur in 1912. He taught at the cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a member of the Beaux-Arts institute. He numbered Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec among his pupils; the latter produced a number of mythological compositions under Cormon's aegis. Notable examples of Fernand Cormon's work include Death of Mohammed (1863); Nibelungen Nuptials (1870); Sita, an oriental composition from 1873; Death of Ravana, King of Louka (1875); Christ Resucitating the Daughter of Jaire (1877); and Victory at Salamis (1887). Cormon also produced numerous decorative works, notably for the fourth arrondissement town hall in Paris, the city's museum of natural history and the Musee du Petit Palais. Over time, his work took on literary and religious overtones, but he may well be remembered above all for his series of canvases tracing the 'ascent of Man' since the Quaternary Period and for his Returning from a Bear Hunt in the Stone Age. Frame: 33" x 28"