Jules Joseph LEFEBVRE
(Tournan-en-Brie, 1834 – Paris, 1912)
The Death of Demosthenes
Oil on canvas
Signed and dedicated lower left
38 x 46 cm
Son of Toussaint Martin Lefebvre, a baker, and Carole Adélaïde Duval, Jules Joseph Lefebvre was born on March 14, 1834 in Tournan-en-Brie (Seine et Marne).The family settled some time later in Amiens, around 1836. Then noticed by his drawing teacher at the municipal school, the city awarded him a scholarship to complete his studies in drawing and painting in Paris. Jules Lefebvre entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1852 in the studio of Léon Cogniet. Nine years later, he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1861 with his Death of Priam. Multiple official recognitions and distinctions followed: third-class medal in 1865, second-class medal in 1868, first-class medal in 1870; first-class medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878, medal of honor in 1886, grand prize at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and member of the jury of the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. On June 26, 1869, Jules Lefebvre married Louise Deslignières, daughter of the architect Alexandre Deslignières, who gave him five children, one of whom was a Captain in the long-distance boat and the youngest a sculptor. As an excellent representative of academic painting, Jules Lefebvre exhibited at the Paris Salon for more than fifty years and very regularly between 1855 and 1910. In 1891, he was admitted as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Also teaching at the Académie Julian, he was a renowned professor who saw many French and foreign students pass through, including: Georges Rochegrosse, Camille Bourget, Paul Landowski, Fernand Khnopff, William Hart, Childe Hassam, Elisabeth Sonrel, Henri Biva, Louis Valtat, Victor Pierre Ménard… His studio was located at 5, rue de La Bruyère in Paris. Jules Lefebvre was first and foremost a great portraitist of his time with more than seventy portraits exhibited at the Parisian Salons, portraits of his own family as well as of high society of the 19th century, both French and foreign, this justifying his presence in the greatest international museums. In 1874, we will note in particular a very beautiful portrait of the Prince Imperial. He was also a renowned painter of nudes, going so far as to compete with Bouguereau in this field. His best-known work is undoubtedly La Vérité, a naked woman emerging from a well and carrying a mirror at arm's length. But triumph and official recognition came with his history painting, which earned him the Prix de Rome. Our Death of Demosthenes, even in modest format, is a good example.Jules Lefebvre also tried his hand at grand decor by painting the Parisian ceilings of the Court of Cassation and the Salon des Lettres of the Hôtel de Ville. His art was internationally renowned, as evidenced by the ceilings of the Vanderbilt Hotel in New York. The artist died in Paris on February 24, 1912, following a long illness. He is buried in the Montmartre cemetery in the 14th division, Chemin Saint-Eloy. His tomb is the work of the architect Samson and is decorated with a bas-relief by Maurice Lefebvre – his last son – and Ernest Dubois. Indeed, Maurice died a year before his father without having been able to finish his father's tomb. It was his teacher Ernest Dubois who completed it in a burst of kindness for the family. Jules Lefebvre is a Commander of the Legion of Honor and Officer of the Order of Academic Palms.
Museums: Cambrai, Amiens, Reims, Paris (ENSBA and Mus. d’Orsay), Valenciennes, Nemours, Auxerre, Compiègne, Melbourne, Chicago, Ghent, Omaha, Saint Petersburg, Buenos Aires, New York (MET, Dahesh), Versailles, Pau, Baltimore, Rome, Istanbul, Budapest, Santiago de Chile…
The death of Demosthenes was a subject for the 1879 Prix de Rome competition won by Alfred-Henri Bramtot, then a student of Bouguereau. The painting by Jules Lefebvre is dedicated to Alfred Jean Marie Broquelet (Abbeville, 1861 – 1957). Broquelet was a French lithographer, a student at the Académie Julian de Maurou, Fuchs, Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury. It was probably there that he met Jules Lefebvre, then a professor, and that they became friends over their beloved Picardy...