A Tender Embrace
A Tender Embrace c1887 by French Painter Émile Munier (1840 – 1895); Academic portraitist who was mentored by French Painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 – 1905).
This is a heart warming and endearing mother and daughter portrait, that depicts a young mother seated in a cushioned green velvet chair, with a large decorative floral pillow supporting her back.
This is wearing a white dress with light blue stripes throughout, along with a white lace floral shawl that is wrapped around her arms and behind her back with a red hair comb placed at the top of her folded hair.
She has her young daughter with blonde hair that is wearing a white dress sitting on her lap, with her hands clapsed together resting her face on her mothers chest as she looks up towards with a smile on her face.
In the background there is a large green drape that is tied off to the left; that partially reveals an embossed orange gold wallpaper that has a vase and flower design on it.
A Tender Embrace is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a rolled canvas print online.
Info Below Derived From Wikipedia.org
Emile was born in Paris, France to Pierre François Munier; an artist upholsterer at the Nationale des Gobelins tapestry factory (in Paris France) and Marie Louise Carpentier, a polisher in a cashmere cloth mill.
He also had two brothers François and Florimond; that along with him who trained and worked as artist for a period at the Nationale des Gobelins.
At the factory Emile was trained as a draughtsman by Abel Lucas, and would develop a close relationship with Abel and his family, which led to Emile marrying Lucas’ daughter Heriette in 1861.
Sadly in 1867, six weeks after his wife gave birth to their son Emile Henri, she contracted severe rheumatism, and died prematurely.
In 1871 Emile left the tapestry factory to pursue painting full time, as well as providing painting classes to adults three nights a week.
Then in 1872 Emile married Sargine Augrand a student of Abel Lucas and friend of Emile and Henriette; the couple had one daughter Marie-Louise, who was born in 1874.
In 1884 he received a commission from Governor Leland Stanford of California and his wife Jane Stanford to create painting of their son Leland Stanford, Jr., who had passed away at the age of 15 years; ahd he titled the piece Angel Comforting His Grieving Mother; which the boy as angel that returned to earth to comfort his mother with his hand placed on her shoulder.
One of Emiles most influential teachers was the French Painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 – 1905), and one can see the influence he had on Emile in many of the pieces he created and over time the two became close friends as well.
One of his most famous works, that demonstrated this influence is his piece Trois Amis or Three Friends, that he exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1885; that depicted a chubby little girl playing on her bed with her kitten and dog.
This work was so well liked by the public, that it was reproduced in many forms and was also used for publicity by the British soap company Pears Soap; which was established in 1807, producing the worlds first transparent soap.
This painting helped establish him as one of the premier painters of young children and their pets; and he would continue to paint such scenes along with animal fishing scenes, seascapes, landscapes, genre peasant scenes, mythological and religious subject matter throughout the early 1890s until his untimely death in 1895 at the age of 55.
