The Ave Maria;Interior of a Convent at Aramont,Verberie(Oise)
Francois Bonvin2.jpg
INCHES
CM
High Quality
Museum Quality
16x20
40x50
$89
$99
20x24
50x60
$109
$119
24x36
60x90
$139
$159
30x40
75x100
$169
$199
36x48
90x120
$249
$249
48x72
120x180
$459
469
The_Ave_Maria;Interior_of_a_Convent_at_Aramont,Verberie(Oise) 1870(Salon of 1870)
2' 8 1/2'' x 1' 7 3/4 (82.5 x 50 cm)
Bequest of Charles-Aime Vince,1890
Francois_Bonvin 1817-1887
French
Francois Bonvin Location
Bonvin was born in humble circumstances in Paris, the son of a police officer and a seamstress. When he was four years old his mother died of tuberculosis and young Francois was left in the care of an old woman who underfed him. Soon his father married another seamstress and brought the child back into the household. Nine additional children were born, putting a strain on the familys resources, and to make matters worse his stepmother took to abusing and undernourishing Francois.
The young Bonvin started drawing at an early age. His potential was recognized by a friend of the family, who paid for him to attend a school for drawing instruction at age eleven. This instruction ended after two years, when his father apprenticed him to a printer, and Bonvin was to remain mostly self-taught as an artist. He spent his free time at the Louvre where he especially appreciated the Dutch old masters. Bonvin married a laundress at the age of twenty, at about the same time that he secured a job at the headquarters of the Paris police. It was during this period in his life that he also contracted an illness which would trouble him for the rest of his life.
Bonvin exhibited three paintings in the Salon of 1849, where he was awarded a third-class medal. He exhibited in the Salon of 1850 with Courbet, and won recognition as a leading realist, painting truthfully the lives of the poor which he knew at first hand. His paintings were well received by critics and by the public. Although his work had elements in common with Courbets, his modestly scaled paintings were not seen as revolutionary. He was awarded the Legion d honneur in 1870.
His subjects were still life and the everyday activities of common people, painted in a style that is reminiscent of Pieter de Hooch and Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin. It is the latter who is especially recalled by Bonvins delicate luminosity.
In 1881 he underwent an operation which did not restore him to health, and he became blind. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held in 1886. He died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1887.
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