Albert MAIGNAN
 (Beaumont sur Sarthe, 1845 - Saint-Prix, 1908)

 Pauline and Severe
 (Illustration for Act II, Scene II of Polyeucte)

 Indian ink, pen and wash
 Signed lower left
 51 x 35 cm
 1889

 Exhibition:
  
 11th exhibition of the French Watercolourists Society, Galerie Georges Petit, 8, rue de Sèze in Paris. No. 125 of the catalogue.

 This beautiful drawing with a classical subject but tinged with symbolism is an excellent example of Albert Maignan's talents as an illustrator, a facet of his art that he developed significantly from 1883 onwards.
 It is one of the five "ivory black" watercolors created by Maignan to illustrate the Polyeucte after Corneille, a work specially published by Mame editions (for which Maignan worked a lot) for the Universal Exhibition of 1889. These watercolors were exhibited in 1889 at the famous Georges Petit gallery (which hosted the 11th exhibition of the Société d'Aquarellistes Français) under the numbers 124/125/126/127/128 (Maignan exhibited another illustration drawing for "Boileau" under the number 129).
 Each drawing illustrated an episode from each of the five acts of the tragedy.
 Our work depicts the moment when Pauline (the daughter of Felix, a Roman senator and governor of the province of Armenia) meets her former suitor Severus (a noble Roman general) and explains to him that she is now married to Polyeuctus (a lord of Armenia) and that she can no longer see him. The scene takes place in a garden with a small temple of Vesta where Pauline has just placed an offering; Stratonice, Pauline's confidante, stands at her side, while Severus is accompanied by his servant Fabian. The drawing is captioned with Pauline's words to Severus: "Yes, I love Severus, and make no excuses for it."

 The book was printed in 800 copies, containing Maignan's compositions etched by Émile Boilvin, Félix Bracquemond, Lionel Le Couteux and Charles-Albert Waltner.
 Corneille's tragedy, first performed in 1641, had been somewhat brought up to date by the opera based on it by Charles Gounod in 1878.

 Born in Sarthe, Albert Maignan studied law "by obligation", but art remained his true vocation. A student of the landscaper and mariner Jules Noël in 1865, then of Évariste Luminais from 1869, he made a trip to Moorish Spain that same year (probably going as far as Egypt), which gave him a taste for creating some orientalist works. Representative of a certain academic movement (history and allegorical painting) from the end of the 19th century, he exhibited every year at the Salon between 1867 and 1906, and produced, on the occasion of official commissions, decorations for several Parisian buildings such as the Opéra Comique, the Senate, the Hôtel de Ville. He is also famous for the decoration in 1900 of the restaurant Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon.
 His success was notably reflected in several medals at the Salon, a gold medal at the 1889 World's Fair, and the Legion of Honor in 1883 (Knight) and in 1895 (Officer).
 Passionate about archaeology and a distinguished collector, he divided his time between his studio at 1 rue La Bruyère in the Nouvelle Athènes district of Paris (9th arrondissement) and his country house in Saint-Prix in the Val d'Oise, where he regularly received his students from 1890.

 The Taylor Foundation, which occupies the premises of his house-studio in Paris, paid tribute to him with an exhibition from March 11 to May 7, 2016.