Black chalk, squared for transfer in red chalk

125 x 251 mm. (4 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.)

SOLD TO A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Henri Lvy enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1856, where he was a student of Franois Picot and Alexandre Cabanel and later Eugne Fromentin. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1865 and won a medal. He continued to exhibit regularly until his death, showing history subjects, allegories and portraits, and he won prizes at the Salons of 1867 and 1869. In 1873 Lvy achieved critical success with a painting of Jesus in the Tomb, and at the Exposition Universelle of 1878 he won a first class medal. Other decorative commissions in Paris included a mural for the Panthon and paintings for the Htel de Ville, Htel Chevallier and elsewhere. The wave of anti-Semitism aroused in France by the Dreyfus affair of 1894 caused Lvy considerable hardship in the latter stages of his career. His refusal to use a pseudonym to sign his pictures went against the demands of his dealers, and he lost an important outlet for his work.

Our drawing is completely characteristic of his work and is squared for a picture, as yet unidentified.