LEHMANN, Henri

(b. 1814 Kiel, d. 1882 Paris)

French painter and teacher of German origin (his name before naturalization in 1846 was Karl Ernest Heinrich Salem). A pupil of his father, Leo Lehmann, and Ingres, whose studio he entered in 1831, Lehmann enjoyed a long and much honoured career. His work reflects his fervent admiration and emulation of Ingres, his respect for the art of the Nazarenes and his study of 17th-century Italian art.

Beginning in 1835, Lehmann exhibited regularly at the Salon, winning first-class medals in 1840, 1848, and 1855. Renowned for his graceful portraits, he depicted many of his era’s leaders, such as writers and composers. He also received numerous commissions for large-scale compositions, including decorations for the city hall of Paris in 1852, which were destroyed in 1871.

Lehmann became head of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1861. He was a master there from 1875, with Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat among his students - both of whom found his conservative regimen unappealing. Lehmann often collaborated with Ingres and visited him twice in Italy.

Female Nude: La Source

This picture is related to a larger multi-figural composition called Les Baigneuses which Lehmann painted while in Rome and exhibited at the 1842 Salon. The classically posed and idealized female nude is clearly inspired by Ingres’s The Source in the Louvre.

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St Catherine of Alexandria

A young collector from Montpellier, Fran�ois Sabatier, bought from the German-born Henri Lehmann this large picture of the martyred St Catherine of Alexandria carried to her tomb by flying angels, painted in Rome in 1839. He was apparently as intrigued by the picture’s combination of extreme sentiment and aesthetic primitivism, based on early Italian painting, as by its imagery of Christian martyrdom. In any case, the freely floating forms of the saint and her celestial escort suggest — not for the first time in a scene of death and transfiguration - an almost sensual ecstasy.

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