PAUL-JEAN FLANDRIN (LYON 1811-1902 PARIS)

Dedicated ‘to my dear friend’, this portrait represents the artist Louis Lacuria (1813-1878), a childhood friend of the Flandrin brothers, having studied together first at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon and later in the studio of Ingres. Paul Flandrin also executed a portrait of Lacuria’s brother, Clément (1813-1878), also a painter. The latter drawing, which dates from the same year as the present work, 1833, is at the Louvre (inv. RF 2794; see Jouvenet, op. cit., no. 187, ill.).