Ernest Rouart
Sunbathing, a moment of relaxation and feminine intimacy in a Mediterranean seascape captured by painter Ernest Rouart
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
Dimensions: 38 x 55 cm
With frame: 64 x 82 cm
sold
The Rouart family, aristocrats with a passion for art whose destiny is intimately linked to Impressionism.
These wealthy industrialists had a passion for art; they lived for painting. Devoid of worldly ambition, they preferred the company of creators to that of their wealthy peers.
Ernest Rouart, the family’s full-time painter
Ernest Rouart, Henri Rouart’s fourth son, chose to devote himself exclusively to painting, thus continuing the family’s artistic legacy. He gave up an industrial career to follow in the footsteps of his father and Degas, who introduced him to his art.
He developed a delicate impressionist style, capturing street snapshots, family portraits and scenes of everyday life, as shown in our painting.
Biography
Ernest Rouart is a French Impressionist painter and collector.
Growing up in the midst of a fabulous collection that painters and enlightened amateurs regularly came to admire undoubtedly influenced his destiny.
After studying mathematics with a view to entering his father’s business, Ernest turned to painting. He was helped in this by a close friend of the Rouarts: Edgar Degas, who gave him lessons and encouraged him to copy the masters of the Louvre. Degas helped him experiment with the preparations used by old masters such as Mantegna.
It was Degas who introduced him to Julie Manet, daughter of Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet. She was to become his wife. The couple moved into a mansion in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and had three children.
A collector like his father, Ernest acquired a number of works through gallery owner Paul Durand-Ruel at the sale of Henri Rouart’s collection around 1912.
Ernest Rouart was instrumental in promoting Impressionism, and worked to showcase Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot through major exhibitions. Together with his wife, they donated paintings by Berthe Morisot to the Louvre and paintings by Manet to the Musée d’Orsay.
He exhibited at the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1899, at the Salon des indépendants, then at the Salon des Tuileries. He was on the committee of the Salon d’Automne, where he also exhibited. In 1932, he organized the Manet centenary exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie, the Degas exhibition in 1937, and the Berthe Morisot exhibition in 1941.
Rouart died at his Paris home on February 27, 1942. He is buried in the Passy cemetery in Paris, next to his wife Julie Manet.
Bibliography
– Dominique Bona, with texts by Léon-Paul Fargue, David Haziot, MediaWiki: Badtitletext, Paul Valéry, Frédéric Vitoux and Charles Villeneuve de Janti, Les Rouart, de l’impressionnisme au réalisme magique, éditions Gallimard, Paris, 2014.
– Sophie Monneret, L’Impressionnisme et son époque : Noms propres A à T, vol. 2, t. 1, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1987
Museums
Paris
– Musée d’Orsay
– Musée Marmottan
