id: 150088 accession number: 1980.292 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1980.292 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:46.053000 A Night Class, c. 1881. Jehan-Georges Vibert (French, 1840–1902). Oil on wood panel; framed: 97.2 x 82.5 x 12.5 cm (38 1/4 x 32 1/2 x 4 15/16 in.); unframed: 60.8 x 45.4 cm (23 15/16 x 17 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Noah L. Butkin 1980.292 title: A Night Class title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1881 creation date earliest: 1876 creation date latest: 1886 current location: creditline: Bequest of Noah L. Butkin copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on wood panel department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Jehan-Georges Vibert (French, 1840–1902) - artist Jehan (or Jean)-Georges Vibert began his artistic career as an engraver in the workshop of his maternal grandfather, Jean-Pierre-Marie Jazet. In April 1857 he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he remained for six years and studied painting under Félix-Joseph Barrias (1822-1907) and François-Édouard Picot (1786-1868). Vibert's early works are indebted to the subjects and style of Picot. After his debut at the 1863 Salon, Vibert won a medal at the 1864 Salon for Narcissus Transformed into a Flower (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux), despite the scandal caused by the nudity depicted.1 Another mythological picture, Daphne and Chloe (Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va.), was harshly criticized at the 1866 Salon; one reviewer counseled the artist "to return to the study of nature, take on a live model."2 Meanwhile, the genre painting Entrance of the Toreros (private collection) he had submitted to the same Salon enjoyed a positive response. Vibert realized that he would achieve greater financial and popular success with smaller genre canvases than with larger mythological and historical paintings. Possessed of a cynical wit and great technical ability, he produced numerous anecdotal pictures that satirized the Catholic Church. Never completely abandoning his aspirations to the "higher" genres, he showed an ambitious allegorical painting, the monumental Apotheosis of Adolphe Thiers (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), at the 1878 Salon, but it, too, elicited extremely negative responses, though it was bought by the state. Also interested in the technique of watercolor, Vibert was a founding member of the Society of French Watercolorists in 1878 and served as its first president. He invented a number of products for painters, including special varnishes, brushes, and a red paint, which he named "Vibert Red"3 and used for his many images of cardinals. Vibert was intensely involved in the theater and wrote several satirical plays in the style of Molière, whom he greatly admired. He married one of the leading actresses of the Comédie Française, Maria Lloyd, but they divorced in 1887. He wrote frequently on art matters, and at the time of his death in 1902 he was compiling an autobiography, illustrated with reproductions of his paintings. 1. Zafran 1992, 14 (repr.). 2. Edmond About, cited and translated in Eric Zafran, French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections (Atlanta, 1982), 164. 3. This name may be a reference to his paternal grandfather, Jean-Pierre Vibert, who retired from the army to dedicate himself to gardening and horticulture, creating many new species of flowers, including a red rose (the Georges Vibert) named after his grandson. --- measurements: Framed: 97.2 x 82.5 x 12.5 cm (38 1/4 x 32 1/2 x 4 15/16 in.); Unframed: 60.8 x 45.4 cm (23 15/16 x 17 7/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1980 opening date: 1981-06-24T04:00:00 Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981). title: Light: Art, Technology, and Society in the Industrial Age, 1750-1900 opening date: 2001-04-07T00:00:00 Light: Art, Technology, and Society in the Industrial Age, 1750-1900. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (April 7-July 29, 2001). title: Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art opening date: 2012-09-26T00:00:00 Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art. Snite Museum, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN (organizer) (September 2-December 2, 2012). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Paris, Palais des Champs-Élysées. Salon (1881), no. 2346, Un atelier le soir.', 'opening_date': None} * {'description': "Paris, Palais des Champs-Élysées. Exposition Nationale (1883), no. 688, L'Atelier du Soir (Salon de 1881), 60 x 45 cm.", 'opening_date': None} * {'description': 'CMA. The Artist and the Studio in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1978), no. 20, 37, 42, 65 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1978-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN (8/26/2012 - 11/15/2012): "Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Art", ex. cat. no. 76, p. 216-217.', 'opening_date': '2012-08-26T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE Alonzo J. Tinsley. New York, Sotheby's PB 84 sale, 18 May 1977 (lot 341), The Life Drawing Class, signed, panel, 24œ x 18 in. date: footnotes: citations: Shepherd Gallery, New York. Bought in June 1977 by Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland. Bequeathed to the CMA in 1980. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 622-6259, Vol. II, no. 218 url: Seney, George I. Catalogue of Mr. George I. Seney's Important Collection of Modern Paintings, To Be Sold by Auction ... on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, February 11th, 12th and 13th ... in the Assembly Room of the Madison Square Garden Building; the Paintings Will Be on Exhibition Day and Evening at the American Art Galleries ... from January 28th Until Date of Sale Inclusive; American Art Association, Managers, Thomas E. Kirby, Auctioneer. New York: [The American art galleries], 1891. page number: 218 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.292/1980.292_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.292/1980.292_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.292/1980.292_full.tif