Silas BROUX

(Roubaix 1867 - Alençon 1957)

Night, after Michelangelo

Black chalk and stumping, with framing lines in pencil, on laid paper.
Signed and dated S. Broux – 1894 – in black chalk at the lower right.
472 x 608 mm. (18 3/8 x 23 7/8 in.)
 
Dated 1894, this large drawing by Silas Broux is a copy after the sculpted allegorical figure of Night by Michelangelo, executed between c.1524 and 1534 for the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici in the Medici Chapel in the Florentine church of San Lorenzo.

 
A student at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs from 1886, Silas-Auguste Broux was a pupil of Jules-Elie Delaunay and Gustave Moreau, and won a first prize medal in a life drawing competition. He first exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1891 and continued to do so until 1956, showing portraits, landscapes, city views and still life subjects. In 1896 he was appointed a professor of drawing at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Industriels in his native Roubaix, and in later years worked as a drawing teacher in Alençon, where he also served as a curator in the local museum. During this period he produced a number of picturesque watercolours of Alençon. Several works by Silas Broux are today in the collections of the museums of Roubaix and Alençon.

Provenance

Possibly the Broux studio sale, Honfleur, Hôtel des Ventes, 9 November 1980 [catalogue untraced].
 

Silas BROUX

Night, after Michelangelo