Elisabeth Sonrel

Elizabeth Sonrel (French, 1874-1953) Jeune femme signed 'Elizabeth Sonrel' (lower left) oil on canvas 61.8 x 41.5cm (24 5/16 x 16 5/16in). PROVENANCE: Private collection, Canada Elizabeth Sonrel was the daughter of the painter 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 at his Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Sonrel showed at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris 1893-1941. She specialised in large watercolours of idealised women that have both a certain Pre-Raphaelite intensity and an affinity to French Symbolist painting. She was inspired by medieval romance, legends and biblical subjects. Her painting Le Sommeil de la Vierge (1895) was well known in its time through reproductions and appeared in the Exposition Universelle in 1900. A number of her paintings including La Musique (Private collection, London), evoke the evanescent creatures of Art Nouveau from which she often adopted the adornments and jewellery. After 1900, she painted mainly portraits and picturesque Breton landscapes, and occasionally flowers.

Elizabeth Sonrel, French, 1874-1953- "La Jeune Fille de Fontainebleau";watercolour over traces of pencil, signed, inscribed labels for the "Exposition Internationale desBeaux-Arts, De Monte Carlo" attached verso, 40x29cm, (unframed, backboard separate) Plus Vat on hammer price £700-1000 Antiques Auction 6 July 2010

Elisabeth Sonrel French, 1879-1953 Garden Recital and Bridal Procession : Two Each signed Elisabeth Sonrel (ll) Watercolor and gouache over pencil on red paper and watercolor, gouache and ink on gray paper, respectively Each 15 1/2 x 22 1/4 inches Estimate $4,000-6,000 Any condition statement is given as a courtesy to a client, is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Doyle New York shall have no responsibility for any error or omission. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging.

LOT 58 ELISABETH SONREL 1874 - 1974 A SPRINGTIME RECITAL AND BRIDAL PROCESSION: A PAIR OF WATERCOLORS 8,000—12,000 USD measurements 15 1/2 by 22 1/4 in. (39.4 by 56.5 cm) alternate measurements 12 3/4 by 19 1/2 in. (32.4 by 49.5 cm) DESCRIPTION each signed Elizabeth Sonrel lower left watercolor, gouache over pencil on red paper and watercolor, gouache and ink on grey paper (2 works)

ELISABETH SONREL (1874-1953) - SCENES FROM DANTE ALIGHIERI'S ?LA VITA NUOVA? - PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ROD STEWART CBE
Mis: two outer panels each: 43 by 20 1/2 in., central panel: 43 by 32 in. two outer panels each: 109 by 52 cm, central panel: 109 by 81cm
central panel signed Elisabeth Sonrel (lower left); outer panels signed with initials oil on canvas, triptych

CATALOGUE NOTE
Elisabeth Sonrel was a painter of portraits, romantic figurative subjects, landscapes and rural subjects. Sonrel?s early paintings, whether in oil or watercolour, almost always represent scenes from literature or the theatre, and usually show beautiful young women. It seems that the painter had the opportunity to study Renaissance art in the course of a journey to Italy, and that she particularly admired ? and sought to emulate in her own work ? the paintings of Botticelli. During this period she took subjects from Arthurian legend and Dante (the present painting showing Dante?s first sight of Beatrice as he passed her when walking in the streets of Florence is undoubtedly the product of this first phase in the artist?s career). Whether Sonrel was also familiar with the work of the English Pre-Raphaelite painters, particularly that of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is uncertain. Her early paintings are analogous to the works that British painters such as Henry Holiday and Edmund Blair Leighton painted in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in emulation of Pre-Raphaelite works of the 1850s. Sonrel may have been led to English Pre-Raphaelitism by the enthusiasm that French symbolist painters had for the works of Rossetti and Burne-Jones in the 1890s and in the first decade of the twentieth century.