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Girl with Roses

Francois Lemoyne

  • Girl with Roses 2
  • Girl with Roses 3
Basic information
ID
Ж-863
Author
Francois Lemoyne
Name
Girl with Roses
Date of creation
18th c.
Country
France
Technique
oil painting
Material
canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
65.7 x 50.5
Additionally
Type
painting
Genre
mythological painting
Plot
Flora
Provenance
Collection of Lviv City Gallery
Information about author
Author
Francois Lemoyne
Artist's lifetime
1688–1737
Country
France
Biography
Francois Lemoyne was a prominent French painter who worked in the Rococo style. Throughout his professional career, Lemoyne aspired to become a leading artist in France, which he partially achieved. He was the first court painter of Louis XV and an honorary member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The artist mainly created large-scale canvases and frescoes on biblical and mythological themes and allegorical compositions. Francois Lemoyne's style was influenced by Charles le Brun, leading 16th-century Italian artists such as Titian or Correggio, and monumentalists such as Pietro da Cortona.
Object description
The work is commonly misattributed to Francois Lemoyne. However, the stylistic of the work has nothing to do with the artist's paintings. "The Girl with Roses" is most likely an example of Giuseppe Nogari's painting manner. Nogari, a pupil of Antonio Balestra, specialised mainly in intimate paintings, portraits and half-figure images, depicting them in an elegant Rococo style. His studies in Balestra's workshop lasted until 1718. The artist began to work independently in 1726. At the beginning of his career, he was strongly influenced by his contemporaries, Giambattista Piazzetta and Giambattista Tiepolo. Subsequently, the painter developed an individual style based on pastel colour harmonies and soft tonal gradations. Francois Lemoyne achieved the greatest success due to "teste di carattere" – samples of genre painting, the main types of which were portraits of characters. He performed some of those works under the impression of Dutch masters, particularly Rembrandt. The artist was most likely familiar with the work of the prominent Dutchman due to the popularity of engravings of his canvases in Venice in the 18th century. Nogari's paintings were collected by Europe's most famous patrons, including Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy and Augustus III of Saxony. Contemporary critics like Francesco Algarotti and Pierre-Jean Mariette highly regarded Nogari's works. The work can be attributed to the artist's mature period of creative work when he began to paint in a softer colour palette. The canvas depicts a half-height young woman wearing light white silk. She looks directly at the viewer with a smile. She holds a branch of white and pink roses in her hands, which can be interpreted as an attribute of the goddess Flora. The black background adds expressiveness to the image.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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