Jean-François Raffaëlli

Daniel William Powers, Rochester, New York (by 1895)

The Powers Art Gallery, Rochester, New York (sold: Chickering Hall, American Art Galleries, New York, January 18-20, 1899, lot 73)

F.W. Savin (acquired at the above sale)

F. Schnittejer & Son, New York

Elwood B. Hosmer  (acquired from the above in 1939)

Private Collection, Canada (1969-1990)

Thence by descent to the present owner

Fredericton, New Brunswick, The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1983

André Alexandre, Jean François Raffaëlli, Paris, 1909, p. 68

B. Schinman Fields, Jean François Raffaëlli (1850-1924): The Naturalist Artist, Ann Arbor, 1979, pp. 35, 324, 483; fig. 94, illustrated p. 483
    

Good condition. The canvas is lined. Under ultra-violet light, there are scattered spots of retouching, mainly in the upper part of the sky. There is also small retouching on the lower horizontal framing edge just beneath the woman holding the child's hand, and a few small retouching in the upper-right beneath the horizontal framing edge. The paint layer is stable and this work is in good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The new vistas provided by the reconstruction of Paris under Baron Haussmann started to appear in the paintings of Manet, Monet and Renoir in 1867, the year of the celebrated Exposition Universelle.  The great Paris boulevards teaming with activity took center stage; the city itself became the muse for a new generation of artists and writers, who gathered together in the Café Guerbois and later in the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes as commentators on the transformation of their city.  Charles Garnier's monumental opera house was one of the most widely anticipated designs of the "new" Paris cityscape.  Started in 1861, it was inaugurated in January 1875 as the architectural masterpiece of the era.  This exciting site provided new subject matter for all artists ranging from the proponents of the traditional, academic style to the avant-garde Impressionists.  Raffaëlli straddled both aesthetics.  It is against this backdrop that Jean François Raffaëlli painted La Place de l'Opéra. 

In between Salon success in 1877 and inclusion in the last Impressionist exhibition of 1881, Raffaëlli submitted La Place de l'Opéra to the Salon of 1878, where it was rejected.  Perhaps it was too modern a statement aligning Raffaëlli uncomfortably with Degas and the Impressionists.  It is a pivotal painting in Raffaëlli's career, a new subject for the painter and a total departure from the fêtes galantes of his student days or his Realist Breton peasants of the preceding year.  Paris city views reappear in his later paintings, but then they are painted in a more "impressionistic" style. 

Raffaëlli's La Place de l'Opera is bustling with activity; well-dressed pedestrians, workmen and horse drawn carriages criss-cross the busy avenue. One can imagine the literati, perhaps Emile Zola, enjoying conversation and a libation at the new Café de la Paix visible to the left.   Children gaze in shop windows, one with giant puppets and another with signage proclaiming products "Aux Etats Unis," almost a premonition of Raffaëlli's trip to America in the 1890s.  It is likely no coincidence that La Place de l'Opéra is almost contemporary with  Degas's Place de la Concorde (fig. 1) painted two years earlier.  One cannot over emphasize Degas's powerful personality or his influence on the younger generation of painters, whom he welcomed into his circle; and Raffaëlli stands out as one of his most talented protégés.   Degas's Place de la Concorde, shows his friend Vicomte Lepic with his two daughters, posed off center, pulling in opposite directions;  a half view of an  elegant man frames the left side of the composition.  The visual effect is one of spontaneity, as if snapped in a photograph.  Raffaëlli plays with the same compositional idea and placement of figures, most noticeably in the men d*ressed in their top hats in the foreground and the workman carrying his ladder in the lower left.  It is almost as if Raffaëlli has moved across the Place and used a wide-angle lens on Degas's Lepic with his daughters.

Raffaëlli was one of the few French artists of the time who, like Degas, traveled to America. In 1895, exhibitions of his work were held in New York, Boston and Chicago. His show in New York, which was held at the American Art Galleries, included not only original oils, but reproductions of some of his best known works.  La Place de l'Opéra appeared as a reproduction, owned by Mr. D.W. Powers of Rochester, New York.  Daniel William Powers (1818-1897), was a leading citizen of Rochester and founded the first museum in the city, the Powers Art Gallery.  Following Powers' death, the entire contents of his museum were sold at auction and Raffaëlli's painting was lost from public view for most of the 20th Century.