Eugene Louis LAMI. 1800-1890

L enigmatica Alice col cagnolino.

Charcoal and sanguine drawing. Measure of sheet: mm. 233x210. Very nice condition.

E. Lami was a painter of history, battle, genre scenes, portraits, watercolorist, lithographer, decorator and costume designer. A student of Gros, of H. Vernet and of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he exhibited at the Salon from 1824 to 1878. He was very successful, both in France and in England where he was exiled during the revolution of 1848, making decorations to the Renaissance genre (to Eu) and to the Venetian rococo (Ferriere, for the baron James de Rotschild). His fame is linked to the grandiose battle scenes (his paintings are preserved in Versailles), but also to the refined lithographs, to the illustration of books (The Heter et l'Eté by Jules Janin) and to the splendid watercolors where he unfolded fully his talent. He was able to translate French elegance wonderfully by illustrating the Parisian society of the Restoration and the reign of Louis Philippe. According to Baudelaire he was a "poet of almost English dandyism for the great love he had of aristocratic elements".