Georges Marie Girardot 1856-1914

Georges Girardot was a painter born on 4 August 1856 in Besançon and died in 1914.

Trained in Paris under the painter Albert Maignan, Girardot was an associate member of the Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Arts of Besançon and Franche-Comté from 1907 to 1914, and a full member of the Société des Artistes Français from 1883. He mainly exhibited genre scenes at the Salon.

At the Salon of 1890, he illustrated a traditional custom from Franche-Comté with Les Révérences à la lune (Crépuscule)(Bowing to the Moon [Twilight]; anonymous sale, Paris, Sotheby’s, 25 June 2008, lot 123). In this scene, young women bow before the moon in the hope of glimpsing, reflected in the water, the face of their future husband, according to a popular verse:

“Moon, fair Moon, bright Moon,
In this mirror let me see
The husband I am to have.”

Girardot received several awards over the course of his career, including an Honourable Mention in 1893, a third-class medal in 1896, and a second-class medal in 1907.

The studio contents presented in this sale reflect the artist’s fondness for village scenes (Avant la noce; Market Scene in Pesmes; Allegory of the Four Seasons). In Avant la noce (Before the Wedding), Girardot captures the lively excitement of a village on the eve of a wedding. He also painted more intimate scenes La toilette du dimanche (Sunday Morning Toilette), portraits La Brodeuse; Portrait de Jean Girardot (The Embroiderer; Portrait of Jean Girardot), as well as still lifes Composition à la soupière;Composition à l’écorché et au triptyque;Composition au buste antique (Composition with Soup Tureen; Composition with Écorché and Triptych; Composition with an Antique Bust).

These genre scenes coexist with works inspired by biblical and mythological subjects. Sirens, nymphs, and figures such as Adam (painted on large-scale canvases) inhabit a nature that is both omnipresent and timeless, at once realistic and idealized. While Georges Girardot sometimes adopts a tight framing on his figures, as in Bûcheron (The Woodcutter), his characters are distinguished by a sculptural treatment that lends them a sense of majesty, further enhanced by the realism of their features. The austerity and restraint of certain scenes elevate the subject matter to a higher, almost spiritual dimension.

La famille du pêcheur (The Fisherman’s Family) resonates with biblical overtones and recalls Le Pauvre pêcheur (The Poor Fisherman) by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1881, Paris, Musée d’Orsay).