Eugène GILLET - Portrait of a woman from behind

Eugène GILLET
Paris, 1859 - Paris, 1938

Oil on cardboard
Signed lower left "E. GILLET"

33 x 24 cm (41 x 32 cm with the frame)
Inscription on the back "Provenant de chez Mr E. Gillet"

Stamp of the panel merchant Latouche / 34 rue de Lafayette in Paris (active between 1864 and 1886)
Beautiful wooden frame

A student of his father François Gillet, Eugène Gillet also received an academic artistic training. A student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he participated in the Salon des Artistes Français between 1878 and 1884 where he exhibited paintings, cartoons and earthenware. He became a member in 1884.
But the history of the Gillet Père et fils company is first and foremost that of enamelled earthenware on lava. Enamelled lava is a material and technique that is little used today but which greatly interested certain artists in the second half of the 19th century. A first company had been founded in 1831 by Pierre Hachette. In 1847 his student and partner François Gillet (1822-1889) took over the company. The Gillet workshop then received many orders for large religious decorations that earned François Gillet a gold medal at the 1878 World's Fair. His workshops also produced decorative fireplace interiors, table tops, tiles and friezes for vestibule decorations, etc.
And when François Gillet died in 1889 during the World's Fair where he received three gold medals, his son Eugène Gillet took over the company. He was brought to work with Guimard who created the famous “Guimard style” with in particular his enamelled lava panels of the Paris Métro in 1902/1903.

Ref: CK9GHAU7TZ