Helène de Lajallet (1858-1946) Oil on canvas - Bouquet of roses - 1881

Hélène de Lajallet (1858-1946) Oil on canvas mounted on panel. Bouquet of roses. Signed at the bottom right and dated 1881. Gilded wooden frame. Dimensions with frame: 41x56.5cm. Dimensions without frame: 36x52cm. Very good condition. *Élisabeth Hélène Geneviève Radegonde Augier de Lajallet, known by her artist name Hélène de Lajallet, was born in 1856 in Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Charente-Maritime. Coming from an old family of Charente nobility (the Augier de Lajallet family), she showed a talent for drawing and painting from a young age. To perfect her artistic education, she moved to Paris to study under leading academic masters. She became a pupil of the great history painter Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, the classical portraitist Jules Lefebvre, and especially Georges Jeannin, one of the most famous flower painters of the late 19th century. Under his guidance, she acquired exceptional mastery of still lifes and floral compositions, developing a style that was both precise in botanical treatment and vigorous in the application of paint. In the early 1880s, while still primarily residing in her hometown in Charente, her career officially took off. She began sending her works to Paris to be exhibited at the prestigious Salon des artistes français, then held at the Palais de l'Industrie. Her bouquets of roses, still lifes of fruits, and scenes of bourgeois interiors received a favourable reception from critics and collectors of the time. Her personal life changed dramatically when she married the journalist, novelist, and playwright Charles Baude de Maurceley (1852–1930). Following this marriage, the couple settled in Paris but maintained an unbreakable link with Charente-Maritime.