Henri MORAL - Milking the Cows

Henri MORAL
Lille, 1840 – Lille, 1889
Oil on canvas
55 x 45 cm (67.5 x 58.5 cm with frame)
Signed lower right "Moral"
Beautiful wooden frame from the 1920s

The newspaper Le Nord illustré wrote in May 1890: "At the beginning of last winter, death prematurely took away a promising and talented painter, Henri Moral."
Henri Moral was a painter from Northern France, born in Lille on May 10, 1840. He died at only forty-nine years old, but was already considered by his peers to be a renowned naturalist painter.
He received his first drawing lessons in a sculpture studio with Mr. Hurtrel. In 1861, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts and won several prizes: in 1869, first prize in painting with a second-class medal, then first prize in composition in painted sketches. In 1881, he was appointed professor of drawing, architecture, and modeling in Armentières, in the Nord department. He was also later a professor at the École supérieure industrielle de Tourcoing and an officer of the academy.
Henri Moral died in 1889, but he had time to paint several fine works and be recognized by his colleagues as a respected painter. The grand raffle (over three hundred prizes) held in 1890 in the main hall on the first floor of the Palais-Rameau in Lille for the benefit of his family was organized by the painter Pharaon de Winter. Among the donors who contributed were the great naturalist painters of the time: Jules Breton and Carolus Duran. Comere, Agache, Edgard Boutry, Cordonnier, Denneulin, Remy Cogghe, de Winter, Harpignies, Krabansky, Leroy, Schoutteten, Weerts and Gaston Thy. The ord Illustre wrote in May 1890: "The enthusiasm with which tickets are taken is only equaled by that with which prizes are sent. In short, a raffle that is one of the events
of regional life."

Ref: 3L86TXES8F