JULES-JOSEPH LEFEBVRE (FRENCH, 1836-1911)

Here Lefebvre takes as his subject the young Mignon, heroine of the 1866 eponymous opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas and based on the character from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Kidnapped by an itinerant band of performers as a child and longing for her home, the tragic figure of Mignon was a popular subject for artists throughout the 19th century and has been portrayed by artists from Ary Scheffer to Bouguereau. While typically painted as a young, tearful figure because of the more emotive subject matter, in the opera Mignon’s story comes to a happy end when Wilhelm, whom she loves, buys her a castle whose previous owner went mad after his wife died of grief over the loss of their young daughter. It is revealed that Mignon was the child taken from the castle and she is reunited with her father, whose sanity is restored because of her homecoming.