ALFRED MILE LOPOLD STEVENS

Alfred mile Lopold Stevens (11 May 1823 24 August 1906) was a Belgian painter,
known for his paintings of elegant modern women.
Alfred Stevens was born in Brussels. He came from a family involved with the visual arts:
his older brother Joseph (18161892) and his son Lopold (18661935) were painters,
while another brother Arthur (182599) was an art dealer and critic. His father, who had
fought in the Napoleonic wars in the army of William I of the Netherlands, was an art
collector who owned several watercolors by Eugne Delacroix, among other artists. His
mother's parents ran Caf de l'Amiti in Brussels, a meeting place for politicians, writers,
and artists. All the Stevens children benefited from the people they met there, and the
social skills they acquired in growing up around important people. [1]
After the death of his father in 1837, Stevens left middle school to begin study at
the Acadmie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he knew Franois Navez, the
Neo-Classical painter and former student of Jacques-Louis David who was its director and
an old friend of Stevens's grandfather. Following a traditional curriculum, he drew from
casts of classical sculpture for the first two years, and then drew from live models. [2] In
1843, Stevens went to Paris, joining his brother Joseph who already was there. He was
admitted to the cole des Beaux-Arts, the most important art school in Paris. Although it is
said that he became a student of its director Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, this is likely
not true.[2] An early picture by Stevens, The Pardon or Absolution (Hermitage, St.
Petersburg), signed and dated 1849, shows his mastery of a conventional naturalistic style
which owes much to 17th-century Dutch genre painting. Like the Belgian painter and friend
with whom he stayed in Paris, Florent Joseph Marie Willems (18231905), Stevens
carefully studied works by painters such asGerard ter Borch and Gabriel Metsu.[3]
Stevens's work was shown publicly for the first time in 1851, when three of his paintings
were admitted to the Brussels Salon. He was awarded a third-class medal at the Paris
Salon in 1853, and a second-class medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855.
[3]

His Ce qu'on appelle le vagabondage [What is called vagrancy] (Muse d'Orsay, Paris)

attracted the attention of Napoleon III who, as a result of the scene in the picture, ordered
that soldiers no longer be used to pick up the poor from the streets.[4] Two other paintings
he exhibited at the Salon in Antwerp that year, Chez soi or At Home (present location
unknown) and The Painter and his Model (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore), introduced
subjects from "la vie moderne" for which he became known: an elegant young woman in
contemporary dress and the artist in his studio. In 1857, Stevens made his first important
sale to a private collector, when Consolation was bought for a rumored 6,000 francs by the
Berlin collector and dealer Ravn. At the same time, he and his brother were becoming
part of the art world of Paris, meeting people such as the Goncourt brothers, Thophile
Gautier, and Alexandre Dumas at the salons of Princess Mathilde as well as popular cafs.
In 1858, Stevens married Marie Blanc, who came from a rich Belgian family and old friends
of the Stevens's. Eugne Delacroix was a witness at the ceremony.[5]

During the 1860s, Stevens became an immensely successful painter, known for his
paintings of elegant modern women. His exhibits at the Salons in Paris and Brussels
attracted favorable critical attention and buyers. An excellent example of his work during
this time is La Dame en Rose or Woman in Pink (Muses royaux des Beaux-Arts de
Belgique, Brussels), painted in 1866, which combines a view of a fashionably dressed
woman in an interior with a detailed examination of Japanese objects, a fashionable taste
called japonisme of which Stevens was an early enthusiast.[3] In 1863, he received
the Legion of Honor (Chevalier) from the French government. In 1867, he won a first-class
medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris, where he and Jan August Hendrik Leys were
the stars of the Belgian section, and was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor. His
friends included douard Manet, Edgar Degas, Charles Baudelaire, Berthe Morisot,James
Abbott McNeill Whistler, Frdric Bazille, and Puvis de Chavannes, and he was a regular in
the group that gathered at the Caf Guerbois in Paris.
Stevens fought for the French during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, but
returned to Belgium with his wife and family before the Paris Commune. They returned
after the war, and Stevens continued to achieve critical acclaim as well as great success
with collectors. In 1875, he bought a grand house and garden in Paris on rue des Martyrs,
which appeared in his paintings as well as those of other artists, including douard
Manet's The Croquet Party (Stdel Museum, Frankfurt am Main) from 1873.[6] (He had to
leave the house in 1880, however, to make way for the construction of a new street, which
was named after him.) In 1878, he was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor and
received another first-class medal at the Salon.
Despite earning a considerable income through the sale of his paintings, Stevens found
that a combination of bad investments and excessive spending caused him great financial
difficulties during the 1880s. An additional expense came from summers by the sea, which
a doctor told Stevens in 1880 were essential for his health. Thus the artist was glad to
agree when the Paris dealer Georges Petit offered him 50,000 francs to finance his
vacation in exchange for the paintings Stevens produced during that time. [7] This deal,
which lasted for three years, resulted in the sea becoming an important subject for him, and
over the rest of his career, he painted hundreds of views of popular resorts along the
Normandy coast and the Midi in the south. Many of them are painted in a sketchy style that
shows the influence of the Impressionists. Stevens also began to take private students,
including Sarah Bernhardt,[3] who became a close personal friend, andWilliam Merritt
Chase. Other students were Berthe Art, Charles Bell Birch, Jules Cayron, Marie CollartHenrotin, Louise De Hem,Georgette Meunier, Lilla Cabot Perry, Jean Paul Sinibaldi,
and Fernand Toussaint.[8]
The single most important work from the second half of Stevens's career is the
monumental Panorama du Sicle, 17891889, which he painted with Henri Gervex.
Stevens painted the women and details and Gervex the men, with the help of fifteen
assistants.[9] It was shown to great acclaim at the International Exhibition held in Paris in

1889. He also received several great professional tributes. In 1895, a large exhibition of his
work was held in Brussels. In 1900, Stevens was honored by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in
Paris with the first retrospective exhibition ever given to a living artist. Supported by patrons
led by the Comtesse de Greffulhe, it achieved social cachet as well as popular success. In
1905, he was the only living artist allowed to exhibit in a retrospective show of Belgian art in
Brussels. Despite these exhibitions, he was not able to sell enough of his work to manage
well financially. Having outlived his brothers and most of his friends, he died in Paris in
1906, living alone in modest rooms.[10]