Evening or Lost Illusions
by GLEYRE, Charles-Gabriel, Oil on canvas, 39,5 x 67,5 cm
The painting Evening was exhibited at the Salon of 1843, and his contemporaries added the appropriate subtitle, as a reference to the novel by Honor� de Balzac, ‘Les Illusions perdues’, which had appeared that year.
Gleyre’s painting is a dreamlike representation of a vision he had on the bank of the Nile in 1835, as his diary shows. He depicts himself as a weary singer, whose lyre has slipped from his hand, as he no longer find words.