Detail of Graziella by Jules-Joseph Lefebvre in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009

Artist: Jules-Joseph Lefebvre (French, 1836–1912)

Title: Graziella

Date: 1878

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 78 3/4 x 44 1/4 in. (200 x 112.4 cm)

Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Accession Number: 87.15.111

Gallery Label: During the second half of his life, Lefebvre's meticulously executed portraits and paintings of nudes were regularly shown in the Paris Salons. He won many awards, including the prestigious Prix de Rome, three Salon medals, and the French Legion of Honor. The American collector Catharine Lorillard Wolfe—who bequeathed to the Museum 143 pictures, including all of those hanging on this wall—commissioned "Graziella" in 1878. It depicts the Neopolitan fisherman's daughter, who is the heroine of Alphonse de Lamartine's novel of the same name. A smoking Mount Vesuvius is visible in the background.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/europe...