Alexandre Cabanel

Who he was

Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823, Montpellier -- 23 January 1889, Paris) was the leading academic painter of the Second Empire and early Third Republic. La Naissance de Vénus, shown at the Salon of 1863, was bought at once by Napoleon III (it entered the Luxembourg in 1881 and is now in the Musée d'Orsay). He was elected to the Académie des beaux-arts in 1863, became in January 1864 professor and head of one of the three painting studios of the École des beaux-arts, which he led until his death, and sat on the Salon jury seventeen times between 1868 and 1888. His pupils included Jules Bastien-Lepage, Henri Regnault and Fernand Cormon. Works of Marie's years include Phèdre (1880, Musée Fabre, Montpellier), Miss Fanny Clapp (1881), Portrait of Mrs Collis Huntington (1882) and Rebecca et Eliézer (Salon of 1883) (Wikipedia fr, "Alexandre Cabanel").

Marie and Cabanel

Cabanel is never her teacher, but he is a fixture of the "official" world whose approval she needs: a Salon juror, the master of her idol Bastien-Lepage, and a regular at the soirées she attends. Her opinion of his painting is low; her opinion of his usefulness is not.

In January 1881, listing whom she would take as a teacher if Tony Robert-Fleury were murdered, she names "Lefèbvre, Bonnat ou même Cabanel... ce qui me serait pénible" (090.0596). On 30 January 1882 she notes that Bastien-Lepage's advice repeats that of Tony and Julian, "n'est-il pas élève de M. Cabanel" (094.0217). She meets him on 6 June 1882 at an evening at Mme Kessler's (095.0136), and on 3 August 1882 mentions a Mme Commère, née Patton, whom she calls his daughter (096.0008). On 4 April 1883 at Madeleine Lemaire's she sees him again, "que je connaissais déjà", and hears him talk with Franceschi about a medal for her pastel; she would prefer a mention, "mais pour la peinture" (099.0037). In May 1883 she cites him as the patron who supported Bastien-Lepage at his start (099.0590), and on 28 July 1883, at the sculpture competition exhibition, he tells her the painting prize has gone to Baschet, a Julian pupil (100.0448).

In the summer of 1883, hoping to get a late picture accepted, she writes to Cabanel and to Lefebvre; the jury has finished its work and the effort is useless (101.0159). Her artistic verdict comes in October: "Parce que je trouve Cabanel insipide! Peut-on être plus éclectique" (101.0623). In January 1884 she is indignant that success goes to the Phèdre and Aurore of "Cabanel, Bouguereau, Lefèbvre et compagnie" rather than to Millet, Rousseau or Corot (103.0046, 103.0058). On 14 March 1884 she lists him among the painters at an evening (103.0517), and on 16 March, in the half-sleep she transcribes, "Cabanel, vernissage... Hochon..." drift through her mind (103.0541). On 20 May 1884 she tells a friend that of the Salon jury she knows only Tony, "et puis Carolus, Gervex et Cabanel pour les rencontrer une fois par an" (104.0277). On 21 July 1884 she envies "Meissonnier, Cabanel, Bouguereau" (105.0266).

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