European Art and Old Masters

Note

We wish to thank Howard L. Rehs from Rehs Galleries, Inc. for confirming the authenticity of the present work, which is now accessible on the online Catalogue Raisonné of the Artist's work at www.emilemunier. A Certificate of Authenticity will be released to the winning bidder.

Although he was destined to become an upholsterer at the Manufacture des Gobelins, just like his father, Émile Munier eventually turned to painting. He first studied under the direction of Adolphe Lucas, and later worked with the great master of the French Academic manner, William Adolphe Bouguereau, whose smooth style and painstaking attention to details are on full view here. Munier was a frequent exhibitor at the Paris Salon from 1869 to 1895, where he received an honorable mention for his painting La Source in 1882. The present painting appears to be directly linked to Le Lever, which was exhibited at the Salon in 1889–an important year as it marked France’s landmark Exposition Universelle for which the Eiffel Tower was erected.

The present work depicts an intimate moment between a mother and her young, angelic-like daughter, as she emerges from sleep and puts her socks on. The two figures are depicted in full-length, in a modest interior which does not seem to affect the sitters’ happiness, as they blissfully smile at each other, unpreoccupied by the viewer’s presence. Although Bouguereau painted similar familial scenes, Munier’s diffused sense of proximity, and love between the characters make his work all the more touching and sincere. By the time of the completion of the present work, at the height of the artist’s career, Munier had lost his first wife shortly after the birth of their son Émile Henri in 1867. He remarried in 1872, and scenes of children and domestic tranquility, as in the present painting, became an important theme in his oeuvre. While Munier’s own wife and daughter, Marie-Louise, were frequently subjects of his paintings, it seems it is not the case here as the daughter’s hair appears fairer than in other known images of Marie-Louise.