André Brouillet (1857-1914) - Athens, the Acropolis at Dusk, 1903

André Brouillet (1857-1914)
Athens, Acropolis At Dusk, 1903
Oil on canvas
27 x 41 cm
44 x 58 cm with its frame
Annotated "The purple shroud where the dead gods sleep" (Renan)
Dedicated, signed André Brouillet, located Athens and dated 1903 lower left

“The purple shroud where the dead gods sleep” is an extract from a famous quote by Ernest Renan from his Memories of Childhood and Youth, II, Prayer on the Acropolis.

Here is the full quote: "The faith one has had must never be a chain. One is even with it when one has carefully rolled it into the purple shroud where the dead gods sleep"

This painting was certainly created at the time when André Brouillet was working on his large canvas "Renan at the Acropolis of Athens" and on the theme of Renan's Prayer on the Acropolis.

Son of the sculptor Pierre-Amédée Brouillet and Élisabeth Leriget, André Brouillet undertook engineering studies at the École centrale Paris in 1876 before entering the École des Beaux-Arts three years later, where he was a student by Jean-Léon Gérôme1. The year he was received at the Salon, in 1879, he took classes with Jean-Paul Laurens.
During his career, he obtained multiple awards at his exhibitions and benefited from numerous public commissions.

He is most famous for his painting A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière (Salon of 1887, Fonds national d'art contemporain) which depicts the neurologist Jean Martin Charcot examining the patient Blanche Wittmann, then considered "hysterical", during a these famous “Tuesday lessons”, of which he had made a real “spectacle”. Charcot is represented there surrounded by a large number of his students and collaborators, including Théodule Ribot, Paul Richer and Gilles de La Tourette. We also see neurologist Joseph Babinski supporting the patient.
Brouillet is also the author of The Violation of the Tomb of Urgel by the Dominicans, The Exorcism. Arab musicians chasing the djinn from the body of a child (1884, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims), The Wounded Peasant (Salon of 1886), The Ambulance of the Comédie-Française in 1870 (1891), The Croup Vaccine at Trousseau Hospital (1895), as well as portraits of personalities of the time, including Joseph Babinski and Adolphe Carnot (1905).

Influenced by his master Jean-Léon Gérôme, Brouillet devoted himself to orientalist painting, thanks to his discovery of the native country of his wife, Emma Isaac, daughter of a rich Jewish merchant from Constantine, cousin of Ferdinand Isaac, of whom he even adopted the daughter, Yvonne, born out of wedlock in 1889 in Constantine, upon the death of her mother, Marie-Louise Travers, on December 19, 1892. The following year, in 1893, returning to France with his adopted daughter, he raised Yvonne as her own daughter, representing her in 14 paintings. A student of the singer Louise Grandjean, she was hired, on June 25, 1911, at the Opéra-Comique as a lyric singer, under the stage name “Yvonne Florentz,” and married the composer Joseph-Eugène Szyfer (nl ), in 1913.
Brouillet traveled to Greece twice, first in 1901 for a state commission (Renan meditating on his prayer on the Acropolis) then in 1903 to paint the portrait of Queen Olga of Greece, in 1901. In 1904, the magazine Femina consecrated him as the “painter of women.” In 1906, he was promoted to officer of the Légion d'Honneur, at the same time as he received the gold medal from the Salon where he presented his large composition for the Sorbonne The Students acclaimed Edgar Quinet and Edmond Michelet on March 6, 1848 when they regain possession of their pulpit.
Leaving on an icy road to rescue a convoy of Belgian refugees, on December 6, 1914, he was hit with congestion and died a few hours later. His funeral took place in Couhé Vérac.

Works in public collections


Bordeaux, Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of Goya after Vicente Lopez, 1894, oil on canvas.
Dole, Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of Mrs. Fornasari, 1886, oil on canvas.
Grenoble, Grenoble Museum: The Wounded Peasant, 1886, inv. MG 833.
Paris :
École nationale supérieure des mines: Portrait of Adolphe Carnot, director of the École des mines de Paris, 1905.
Small palace :
Portrait of Jean and Jeanne, the children of Professor Joffroy, 1895, oil on canvas;
The Simple Life, 1904, oil on canvas.
Poitiers, Sainte-Croix Museum: Puteaux, National Contemporary Art Fund: A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière, 1887, oil on canvas.
Violation of the tomb of the bishop of Urgel, 1881, oil on canvas, inv. 2015.9.15;
Self-portrait, 1898, oil on canvas, inv. 2000.3.

Reims, Museum of Fine Arts:
Waiting, 1882, oil on canvas, inv. 884.1.2;
The Exorcism. Arab musicians chasing jinns from the body of a child, 1884, oil on canvas, inv. 2019.1.10

Ref: 0CECR9EP83