Le fondeur de bronze by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer
1865-1953 | French

Le fondeur de bronze

Signed "Levy Dhurmer" (lower right)
Pastel on paper

French painter Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer was one of the leading artists of the Symbolist and Art Nouveau movements at the turn of the century. This compelling portrait of men working in a bronze foundry bears witness to the artist’s skill for infusing his compositions with poignant imagery that honors the lives and labor of everyday people. Through a brilliant use of color and perspective, Lévy-Dhurmer's Le fondeur de bronze immerses the viewer in the intense heat of the foundry.

Lévy-Dhurmer's Le fondeur de bronze is further distinguished by prestigious provenance. The artwork's initial owner was Joseph Malesset, a French industrialist who made his fortune in owning industrial factories, including bronze foundries. Malesset was promoted to the revered grade of Officer of the Legion of Honor, the highest French order of merit, in 1906, and Lévy-Dhurmer's painting was created to glorify the visionary's achievements.

Born in French Algeria in 1865, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer studied drawing and sculpture in Paris as a child and began his artistic career as a decorative painter at a porcelain manufactory in Golfe-Juan. Throughout his long career, Lévy-Dhurmer experimented with different artistic styles and mediums, succeeding as a ceramicist, painter, pastelist, and furniture designer. Perhaps his most celebrated work, the famed Wisteria Dining Room, now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a brilliant example of the artist’s remarkable range of skills in various media.

It was his trip to Italy in 1895 that would change the course of his life and interests. It was there that he discovered an interest in German and Florentine Renaissance — resulting in paintings that fit in well alongside those of the English Pre-Raphaelites. That same year, Lévy-Dhurmer officially began his painting career. In 1896, he held his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, where he appeared for the first time under the name Lévy-Dhurmer, adding to his surname Lévy part of his mother's maiden name, Pauline-Amelie Goldhurmer. 

His unique blend of Academic detail with Impressionist color and technique garnered the artist considerable attention. He was drawn to the ideals of the Symbolist movement, which offered an intellectual alternative to the purely visual ideals of the Impressionists. Rather, the subject matter of the Symbolists explored more complex emotional and spiritual ideas - this highly personal portrait is a remarkable example of the movement's ethos.

Circa 1906-1907

Bears label on mount "Le fondeur de bronze / par Levy Dhurmer/ offert par ses amis à Monsieur J. MALESSET / Président de Section au Tribunal de Commerce de la Seine / à l'occasion de / Sa Nomination d'OFFICIER de la LEGION d'HONNEUR/10 février 1907"

Canvas: 34 3/4" high x 24" wide
Frame: 42 3/4" high x 33 3/8" wide x 2 1/2" deep

Provenance: Private Collection of Joseph Malesset
Private Collection, by descent from above
Private Collection, Basel, Switzerland
M.S. Rau, New Orleans