Roman sleeping woman
Oil on canvas
At the foreground, this painting shows a woman asleep on her bed. The crimson matress is overlaid with a white sheet, a pillow trimmed with lace and a striped, colourful drape. She hold a fan in her left hand that is released. Her right hand lightly rests on the pillow.
The Roman woman is sleeping near a colonnade where two birds are resting.
Through the columns, one can see a very typical roman countryside landscape.
Period : Roma, 1859
Painter : Felix-Auguste Clément
Signed « F.A. Clément, Rome 1859 » under the right hand side column
Origins : Haro Collection, end of the XIX century
Dimensions :
View : 121 x 199 cm.
4 ft x 6 ft 6 1/2 in.
Frame : 152 x 230 cm.
5 ft x 7 ft 6 1/2 in.
Félix-Auguste Clément (Donzère 1826-1888 Algiers)
He self-taught himself to drawand then attendede from 1843 to 1848 the Lyons Ecole des Beaux Artscourses with Bonnefond as a teacher.
He left Lyons to work in Paris along with Drolling and then at the Ecole des Beaux Arts with Picot. In 1853 he showed a portrait.
In 12856 he won first-prize in Grand Prix de rome with « Young Tobby returning home » (le retour du jeune Tobby ). Staying in Roma, he sent to the salon taking place in Paris « the Roman woman sleeping » in 1858, a nude study, along with « the hunter-tail » (le dénicheur) in 1861.
Back from Roma, in 1862, he went to Egypt where he was asked by Prince Halim to decorate his Choubrah palace near Cairo.
He returned to France in 1868 and was ordered by the State in 1872 to go and copy in Padua a fresco by Mantegna.
In 1875, he was promoted painting teacher at the Lyons Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he then settled himself in Paris.
Because of his health, he spent the 1787-1788 summer in Algiers, where he died.
Some of Clément’s works can be seen in Lyons, Nica, and Valencia museums.
Several sales including paintings by Clément can be found in E. Benezit Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs.
In 1892, at the Haro sale, a painting called « the rest » (la sieste) reaches 2900 Francs. What’s more, at the back of our Roman woman sleeping, one can read, penciled, « Clément…La sieste ».
The genuine title of this painting, The « Roman woman sleeping « has been forgotten for the benefit of « the rest » (la sieste).