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Description: | Signed: yes Description: The identity of Lucien Gerard remains singularly elusive. While Bénézit recalls his activity as an animal painter, the Russell-Cotes painting of a Girl Peeling Potatoes testifies to the artist's considerable ability as a painter of small moralising genre scenes in the style of Dutch seventeenth-century masters such as Frans van Mieris and Jan Steen. However, Gerard's style appears above all to be indebted to his successful contemporary Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) largely known for pastiches of seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings. Set in a humble interior, the Russell-Cotes painting represents a seated young girl, perhaps a maid, with a plate on her lap for the skins of the potatoes she is peeling to fall into. On the floor to the right is an old metal bucket suggesting her duty of labour intensive housework, while on the table to the left she contemplates an ornate birdcage containing a vibrant yellow canary. The caged bird is symbolic of withheld or virtuous love; the maid's thoughtful look may suggest she is re-considering her sacrifice of passion to remain virtuous and dutiful. A related painting by Lucien Gerard was on the Vienna art market in 1970, which represented a seated maid with dirty plates of seafood at her feet leaning over to release a bird from its cage overgrown with ivy. Each of these elements combine to present a moralising narrative on the unfortunate fate that awaits those who leave the virtuous path. | Subjects: | everyday life; figure | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Gérard, Lucien (French painter 19th century) Æ | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8464... | Go to resource |
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