Lot 98: FRANÇOIS-AUGUSTE BIARD

signed Biard (lower right)

oil on canvas

34 1/2 by 45 in.<br><br>87.6 by 114.3 cm.

1798-1882

Paris, Salon, 1839, no. 169 as La poste restante

In the mid nineteenth-century, great, enthusiastic crowds would swarm to the Salon to catch a glimpse of Biard's latest works. A General Delivery holds all the elements that his admirers clamored to see. The composition features an assemblage of carefully observed figures who have apparently gathered to squabble over the news in recently-delivered mail. The group is most likely at a Poste Restante office. When on a long trip, travelers would leave their itineraries with family and friends and letters would be addressed to the person care of Poste Restante (General Delivery), to be held until called for.

A red shawled woman points accusatorily at a dandified man hiding a missive behind his back. A young lady with a large bonnet (a frequent character in Biard's works) moons over what must be a love note clasped to her bosom, while the mirror figure of a seated older woman peers at the entire scene using a rolled envelope as a makeshift view-finder. Although the exact relationship between the figures is elusive, this mystery enriches, rather than frustrates, Baird's narrative puzzle. The various physiognomies, expressions, and costumes guide the viewer in a story that references contemporary Parisian life.

This kind of gloss on the new bourgeois activity of travel tours was very popular in the second half of the nineteenth century. Cook's, in England, was the first to begin organizing group tours, but the French quickly followed suit. Vacation travel grew rapidly with the increasing size of the middle class, greater income and leisure time, and with the spread of railroads and steamboats. Satirists and humorists soon picked up on the trend. Traveling songs were written, comic revues appeared and newspapers sent correspondents on tours to report back with details. Biard's painting fits into this trend in popular culture---it would have been a more tangible reminder of travels for patrons who could afford more than a postcard.

We are grateful to Lucy MacClintock for her assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.

This lot will be sold unframed.