Playmates by Emile Munier
Playmates by Emile Munier

Playmates

Playmates c1903 by French Painter Emile Munier (1840 – 1895); Academic portraitist who was mentored by French Painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 – 1905).

This is an adorable portrait of a young girl of about the age five that is in her white sleeping gown sitting in a large arm chair, leaning against and resting her upper back and head on a large dark pillow.

The young irl is looking at one of her playmates a small white cat with brown accents on its head and back, that she is holding with her left hand that is positioned on a large white pillow that is pressed up against the curved arm of the chair.

At the same time with her right hand, she is embracing a black puppy with brown accented fur that she is leaning her head on and which has a ribbon tied around it with a bell attached.

Behind the chair is a large red embroidered drape with gold tassels along its leading edge and to the right are four large pane windows with a white embroidered curtain diagonally placed across them.

On the arm chair she is sitting on is a white embroidered cover and the chair also has green tassels along its bottom edge.

Beside the chair is a side table that has a large cup and saucer, with a metal spoon in the cup that contains what looks like milk; and lastly there is a decorative carpet on the floor that extends throughout the room.

Petite Fille et Chat is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a 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.

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