SOLDStudy of a woman seated leaning forward, full length three-quarter view, circa 1900
Unmounted (ref: 9179)
Charcoal
13 x 8 in. (33 x 20.4 cm)
SOLDProvenance: The Artists Family
Belleroche's talent as a painter was recognized by his contemporaries - Degas owned three lithographs by Belleroche and in the early 1890s the French state acquired a painting for the Luxembourg Gallery. Roger Marx, the critic who discovered Renoir, was amongst Belleroche's fervent admirers, referring to him as 'le peintre des femmes decoiffées' (Gazette de Beaux-Arts, XLX, Jan 1905).
Marx also fully acknowledged Belleroche's importance as painter-lithographer, writing in 1908: Belleroche holds a premier position in the current renaissance of lithography. No one since Eugene Carriere has equaled Belleroche's technique or his understanding of lithography. He is a master.... Indeed he is a painter-lithographer: he brings his subjects to life in moving light and shadows. His ink creates tones which reach the limits of the joyous and profound... His art, born in a daylight which is its own justification, is created from love." (Roger Marx, Peintres-lithographes Contemporains:Albert Belleroche Gazette des Beaux-Arts I, vol 39, 1908, p. 74).
The pose of this model is typical of the studies Belleroche made for his lithographic portraits:
