Eugène Lejeune
(1818-1897)

 

The painter Eugène Joseph Lejeune was born at Beaumont-les-Autels on 14 December 1818. He was a pupil of Paul Delaroche and of Charles Gleyre; he exhibited at the Salon from 1845 onwards. His specialities were genre scenes, portraits, and animals. He died in Paris in April 1897.

This portrait of Eugène Lejeune does not appear in the Silvy daybooks, although three others do, taken on 21 July 1861. Of these, two show the painter in the process of painting a portrait of Silvy; in the first, he has just started the portrait, and in the second, the portrait, which shows Silvy at half-length against a plain, dark background, holding a pair of white gloves, is almost finished.

In June 1863 the newly married Madame Alice Silvy wrote to her father: 'Nous avons reçu un ami de Camille, le peintre M. Lejeune. Il a beaucoup apprécié les tableaux dont tu avais décoré notre logis.' It seems likely that this portriat of Silvy's friend was taken during this visit, which occured during the period covered by the missing volume of the Silvy daybooks. 

The painted flat in this photograph, which depicts a ship’s deck, appears rarely in the Silvy daybooks, less than fifteen times, and with only one other exception, the sitter is always a naval officer or naval cadet. It is unclear why Silvy would have chosen this particular backdrop for a portrait of a painter.