Lot 168: Ophelia

James Bertrand (French, 1823-1887)
Ophelia
signed and dated '1878 JAMES BERTRAND' (lower right)
oil on canvas
39½ x 22 in. (100.3 x 55.8 cm.)

James Bertrand was a well-known French painter and lithographer. He studied at the Ecoled des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (1840-43) in the studio of Etienne Rey (1789-1867) and Jean-Claude Bonnefond (1796-1860). Shortly after graduation on 1844 he moved to Paris to continue his education in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Bertrand first exhibited at the Salon in 1857. From 1857 to 1862 he stayed in Italy, where he was influenced by the Nazarenes, exemplified by Friedrich Overbeck, Gebhard Flatz and Franz Riepenhausen. Approximately at the same time he befriended a group of sculptors of the Second Empire such as Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Alexandre Falguihre and Auguste Clisinger. From 1866, possibly under the influence of his sculptor friends, Bertrand devoted himself to representing allegories and genre scenes in which he abandoned his early Nazarene style. These were pleasant compositions showing the great heroines of history and literature, as in the present painting depicting Ophelia, a popular dramatic female protagonist of the Pre-Raphaelites.