Jean-Jacques-Baptiste BRUNET
(Poitiers 1848 - Poitiers 1917)
Study of a Crucified Thief
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Black chalk and graphite, squared in graphite.
Signed and dated Jean Brunet / 1883 at the lower right.
Further signed J. Brunet at the lower left centre.
490 x 311 mm. (19 1/4 x 12 1/4 in.)
Signed and dated Jean Brunet / 1883 at the lower right.
Further signed J. Brunet at the lower left centre.
490 x 311 mm. (19 1/4 x 12 1/4 in.)
This drawing is a preparatory study for Brunet’s painting Golgotha, painted in 1883 and presented by the State in 1887 to the Musée de Poitiers, where it remains today. The same museum’s collection also includes four other works by this Poitevin painter, notably a painting of Charon on the River Styx, and two portraits.
Two comparable figure drawings by Brunet are in the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie.
Two comparable figure drawings by Brunet are in the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie.
A pupil of Jean-Léon Gerôme, Jean Brunet was a painter of religious, mythological and historical subjects, whose work was described by the contemporary author Octave Uzanne as evocative of ‘an art of passion and truth, where pain is played out’1. He exhibited at the Salons from 1876 onwards, showing mainly portraits, religious and genre scenes, and was awarded several prizes. He exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, winning a silver medal, and also sent paintings to exhibitions in Chicago and Philadelphia. Among his public commissions was the decoration of the ceiling of the salle des fêtes of the Hôtel de Ville in the artist’s native Poitiers with a scene from local history. Brunet is also known to have provided illustrations for Le Figaro illustré.