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Elizabeth Sonrel (French, 1874-1953)
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Elizabeth Sonrel
Portrait of a Young Woman with Lillies circa 1900
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Biography |
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Elizabeth Sonrel was the daughter of the painter from Tours, Stephane Sonrel, from whom she received her early artistic guidance. To further her artistic studies she moved on to Paris where she became the pupil of the famous artist Jules Lefebvre. The Tours museum owns her diploma work, Pax et Labor, which was executed in 1892 at the age of 18 and shows how tremendously precocious she was. She showed at the Paris salon from 1893 onwards, especially large watercolours of idealised women that have both a certain Pre-Raphaelite intensity (for instance she deeply admired Botticelli) and an affinity to French symbolist painting, of which this watercolour, Scene Allegorique, is an important example. Other mystical works include Ames errantes (Salon of 1894) and Les Esprits de l’abime (Salon of 1899). and Jeune femme a la tapisserie which has an inspiration close to the famous symbolist Maxence. Her painting Le Sommeil de la Vierge (1895) was well known in its time through reproductions and appeared in the Exposition Universelle in 1900. Our work, dated 1896, is from her most inspired period. |
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After this date she painted mainly portraits and picturesque Breton landscapes, and occasionally flowers, and her last exhibit at the Salon was in 1941 when she was 67 years old. She is also recorded as having exhibited at Liverpool. Although Elizabeth Sonrel was known during her lifetime, particularly through the number of paintings reproduced, it is only in the last 20 years or so that her work has again received the attention it deserves. A Salon exhibit of 1899, the watercolour Les Esprits de l’abime was sold in 1974 at a French auction for the astonishing price of £10,000. (In the entire 1970s the highest price for a Tissot watercolour was £13,000). Her painting Cortege de Flore is represented in the French provincial museum at Mulhouse and evokes the pale tones and style of Botticelli. She died at Sceaux in 1953. |
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