Fantine (painting) on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''Fantine'' is a painting by
''Fantine'' is a painting by Margaret Bernadine Hall
Margaret Bernadine Hall (10 March 1863 – 2 January 1910) was an English painter who spent most of her career in Paris. Few of her works have survived, but she is notable for her 1886 painting ''Fantine'', which hangs in the Walker Art Gallery, ...
(1863–1910) hanging in the Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.
History of the Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...
, Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, England. It is executed in oil on canvas, and measures 157 cm by 116.2 cm.
History
The subject of the painting isFantine
Fantine (French pronunciation: ) is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel ''Les Misérables''. She is a young '' grisette'' in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich student. After he abandons her, she is forced to look after their chil ...
, a character in Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
's 1862 novel ''Les Misérables
''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its origin ...
''. It was painted in Paris in 1886, the year following Victor Hugo's death, and received an honourable mention from the Société des Femmes Peintres. The following year some of Hall's paintings were shown at exhibitions in Vienna, Chicago, London and Manchester, and it is likely that ''Fantine'' was among them. After Hall's death in 1910, her brother Sir Douglas Bernard Hall offered the painting to the National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
, London, but it was declined. During the following year he offered it to the Walker Art Gallery, where it was accepted. In 1988 the painting was restored in the Harriet Owen Hughes Conservation Centre in Bluecoat Chambers
Built in 1716–17 as a charity school, Bluecoat Chambers in School Lane is the oldest surviving building in central Liverpool, England. Following the Liverpool Blue Coat School's move to another site in 1906, the building was rented from 1907 ...
, Liverpool, and as of 2012, it hangs at the head of the main staircase of the Walker Art Gallery.
Description
The painting depicts the full-face portrait of a seated woman with strong highlights, in front of a dark background. The woman looks forward with a sad, wistful expression. In front of her is a sleeping baby in a cradle, with a doll in a red dress lying on the floor. In the background, an empty bottle sits on a table. The painting represents an episode in the early chapters of ''Les Misérables''. Fantine, having fallen in love, had been made pregnant, and then abandoned. This occurred in Paris during a period following theFrench Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. The baby was later nicknamed Cosette
Cosette () is a fictional character in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo and in the many adaptations of the story for stage, film, and television. Her birth name, Euphrasie, is only mentioned briefly. As the orphaned child of an u ...
. The painting demonstrates the sorrow and poverty of an abandoned single mother in post-Revolutionary France.
See also
* Adaptations of ''Les Misérables''References
Citations Sources * {{Les Misérables 1886 paintings Paintings based on literature Paintings in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery Paintings of children Works based on Les Misérables