?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
LUCIEN METIVET (1863-1932)
EUGÉNIE BUFFET / AMBASSADEURS. 1893.
47½x30½ inches, 120½x77½ cm. Charles Verneau, Paris. Condition B+: replaced and overpainted losses in margins and corners, some slightly affecting text; repaired tears, creases and restoration in margins and along vertical and horizontal folds; small replaced loss along fold; repaired pin holes in margins.
Although he studied painting in the Montmartre studio of Fernand Cormon (along with Toulouse-Lautrec), Lucien Metivet became a prolific illustrator, working for the best satirical magazines in Paris, like Le Rire and L'Assiette au Beurre. He was a member of the Montmartre circle of artists where he did a lot of work decorating cabarets. Here, he depicts the chanteuse Eugenie Buffet in the role she created for herself as an impoverished working-class girl. She is shown walking down a snowy Parisian street, with her hair and dress the only two dark spots in the image. Metivet cleverly puts her name on a poster on the hoarding he passes, and writes "every night" in the snow behind her steps. This is a classic, French café-concert image.
