François-Auguste Biard

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, New York, 24 May 1995, lot 150;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, New York, 24 October 1996, lot 150;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 28 October 2008, lot 114.

Salon de Paris, 1853, no. 107.

Born in Lyon, François Biard began his training in his home town, with the painters Pierre Révoil and then Fleury Richard at the École des Beaux-Arts. He subsequently travelled in Italy, Greece and the Middle East before going to Brazil in 1858, where he stayed for two years. Biard never confined himself to a specific genre: he was equally adept at painting historical or biblical scenes, landscapes, genre scenes and portraits – he was in fact official portrait painter to Louis-Philippe – as well as producing compositions reflecting his commitment to the campaign for the abolition of slavery. 

The present painting was exhibited at the 1853 Salon, where it found favour for its humorous qualities and the accuracy of the detail, as well as the many anecdotal aperçus and the variety of facial expressions. In the foreground on the right, an admirer stands up to congratulate the singer, dropping her bouquet in her haste and thereby annoying the man beside her. Behind the piano, a young woman is about to faint, while the women around her gaze admiringly at the tenor. The variety of the figures and their gestures brings this charming composition to life, illustrating with an amused eye a scene from daily life in a salon at the height of the nineteenth century.