Caricature de Rodolphe Julian

Overview

Caricature de Rodolphe Julian (oil on panel, 85,5 × 38 cm, c. 1878) is Marie's caricature of her own teacher — the founder of the Académie Julian, the man who ran the studio where she trained, commissioned pictures from her, bullied and flattered her, and let her down badly over the Cercle exhibition of 1883.

It is in a private collection; it was sold at Drouot, Paris, on 24 April 2025, and its present whereabouts is not public. It is little known, and it is one of the most immediately likeable things she made: an artist barely twenty, three months or so into art school, painting a full-length joke at the expense of the man in charge, and painting it in oils on a tall narrow panel rather than dashing it off in a sketchbook.

Description

Oil on panel, 85,5 × 38 cm — a format more than twice as tall as it is wide, which is itself part of the joke: the proportions stretch the sitter. Working a caricature up in oil, at nearly life-scale in height, is a considerable amount of effort to spend on a gag, and suggests it was made to be seen and hung, not passed around.

Making of the Work

The finished panel is not described in the diary, but the diary brackets it closely on both sides, and the two bracketing passages between them explain how such a picture came to exist.

The first is 10 November 1877 (¶ 076.0099), five weeks after she entered the atelier: "Ensuite nous avons fait des croquis, un d'eux un peu en caricature a eu du succès, Julian me l'a fait signer et l'a mis dans son album." A caricatural sketch of hers is a hit; Julian makes her sign it and files it in his own album. This is the earliest documented drawing of hers that Julian kept — and it establishes that caricature was the register in which he first noticed her.

The second is 19 May 1879 (¶ 085.0091). After a two-hour confessional in Julian's cabinet in which he tells her she is "son esclave, sa chose", she answers: "Alors je lui dis que je ferai son portrait." The promise of a portrait of Julian comes straight out of him needling her — which is exactly the affectionate-mocking register a caricature belongs to.

Caricature was a constant habit through these years, not an isolated experiment. She posts a caricature of the Gans brothers to them by mail (¶¶ 082.0055–082.0056, 12 August 1878) and finally lets them in to see it (¶¶ 082.0123–082.0124, 21 August); she sketches Schwarz in a notebook the same month (¶ 082.0060); she paints a caricatural watercolour pochade of Mme de Fayet singing at a fleeing cupid with Paul de Cassagnac's head on it (¶ 078.0050, 8 February 1878); she caricatures "Popaul" Cassagnac and his brother-in-law with captions (¶ 086.0028, 8 August 1879), and reports "j'ai fait des caricatures et un tas de Brésiliens" (¶ 086.0157, 29 August 1879). As late as March 1883 she is still making charges à la plume (¶ 098.0483).

References in Diary

No entry describes the finished panel. The documented antecedents are:

- First related mention — 1877-11-10, ¶ 076.0099: a caricatural croquis of hers succeeds; Julian makes her sign it and keeps it in his album
- 1879-05-19, ¶ 085.0091 — she promises Julian his portrait, immediately after he calls her "son esclave, sa chose"
- The caricature habit: 1878-02-08, ¶ 078.0050 · 1878-08-12, ¶¶ 082.0055–082.0056, 082.0060 · 1878-08-21, ¶¶ 082.0123–082.0124 · 1879-08-08, ¶ 086.0028 · 1879-08-29, ¶ 086.0157 · 1883-03-12, ¶ 098.0483

Related Entries

- #Rodolphe_Julian — the sitter
- #Julian — the Académie Julian
- #Tete_jeune_femme_plume_bleue — the other surviving work of c. 1878
- #Art_practice · #Portrait

Sources

- Wikimedia Commons, Caricature de Rodolphe Julian, vers 1878 — 1458 × 3446 px; medium, dimensions, the Drouot sale of 24 April 2025
- The diary itself, carnets 076, 078, 082, 085, 086, 098