(also known as Benjamin Constant), born Jean-Joseph Constant (10 June 1845 - 26 May 1902), was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits. Benjamin-Constant was born in Paris. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel. A journey to Morocco in 1872 strongly influenced his early artistic development and lead him to produce Romantic scenes under the spell of Orientalism. Among his noted works in this vein are Last Rebels, Justice in the Harem (both in the Luxembourg Gallery), Les Cherifas, and Moroccan Prisoners (Bordeaux). His large canvas, The Entrance of Mahomet II into Constantinople (Toulouse Museum), received a medal in 1876. After 1880, he changed his manner, devoting himself to mural decorations and to portraits. Prominent examples include the great plafond in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, entitled Paris Convening the World; his paintings in the New Sorbonne, representing Literature, The Sciences, and the Academy of Paris; and the plafond of the Opera Comique theatre. He was distinguished as a portrait painter, especially in England, where he was a favorite of the aristocracy. His portrait Mons fils Andra (Luxembourg) was awarded a medal of honor at the Salon in 1896. Benjamin-Constant painted Pope Leo XIII, Queen Alexandra of England (1901), Lord John Lumley-Savile, and Henri Blowitz (1902). He was made a member of the Institute in 1893, and was a commander of the Legion of Honor. He visited the United States several times, and painted a number of portraits. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns a large mural decoration by Benjamin-Constant entitled Justinian in Council.   Related Paintings of Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant :. | Queen Herodiade | Palace Guard with Two Leopards | Portrait of an Arab Woman | Harem Scene | The Empress Theodora at the Colisseum |
Related Artists:
Giorgio Schiavone
born circa 1433-1504
William Maw Egley
English painter , (1826-1916) was a British artist of the Victorian era. The son of the miniaturist William Egley, he studied under his father. His early works were illustrations of literary subjects typical of the period, such as Prospero and Miranda from The Tempest. These were similar to the work of The Clique. William Powell Frith, one of The Clique, hired Egley to add backgrounds to his own work. Egley soon developed a style influenced by Frith, including domestic and childhood subjects. Most of his paintings were humorous or "feelgood" genre scenes of urban and rural life, depicting such subjects as harvest festivals and contemporary fashions. His best known painting, Omnibus Life in London (Tate Gallery) is a comic scene of people squashed together in the busy, cramped public transport of the era. Egley always showed great interest in specifics of costume, to which he paid detailed attention, but his paintings were often criticised for their hard, clumsy style. In the 1860s Egley adopted the fashion for romanticised 18th century subjects.
CARRACCI, Annibale
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1560-1609 Painter, draughtsman and printmaker, brother of Agostino Carracci. Since his lifetime, he has been considered one of the greatest Italian painters of his age. His masterpiece, the ceiling (1597-1601) of the Galleria Farnese, Rome, merges a vibrant naturalism with the formal language of classicism in a grand and monumental style.