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Lévy, Emile
(b Paris, 29 Aug 1826; d Passy, 4 Aug 1890). French painter, illustrator and pastellist. He was a pupil of Alexandre Abel de Pujol and François-Edouard Picot at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and made his début at the Salon of 1848. In 1854 he won the Prix de Rome with Abraham Washing the Feet of the Angels (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). In 1855 he sent Noah Cursing Canaan (Aurillac, Mus. Parieu) from Rome for exhibition at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and the work was bought by the French government. He specialized in classical and biblical subjects executed with the soft colouring, linear precision, prettiness and graceful poses of the Neo-classical style. He became particularly famous for his antique pastoral love scenes, such as The Bowl: Idyll (Pau, Mus. B.-A.), which were much appreciated by such contemporary critics as Jules Claretie (1840–1913). However, he also depicted moments of violence and drama such as the Death of Orpheus (1866; ex-Mus. Luxembourg, Paris) and the Judgement of Midas (1870; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre). His Jewish background led him to choose subjects from the Old Testament in such works as Ruth and Naomi (1859; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.) and to describe Jewish rituals in such others as the Feast of Tabernacles as Celebrated by a Jewish Family in the Middle Ages. He made a few attempts to treat modern subjects in the manner of Carolus-Duran, depicting fashionable and worldly ladies in low-cut dresses using brilliant and contrasting colours, as in the interior scene Letter.
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