6194 - Wencker, Joseph

Wencker, Joseph Studio Scene with a Yellow Sofa. Oil on canvas. 52 x 30.5 cm. Indistinctly signed "J Wen..." on the lower left edge; inscribed "Un coin de l'atelier" in French on the reverse side of the canvas. In a scene that is both cheerful and intimate, Joseph Wencker offers the viewer a glimpse into a painter’s studio. The artist and his model have made themselves comfortable on a yellow sofa during a break from painting. The painter, wearing a white smock, smoking a cigarette, and resting his head in his hand, listens attentively as his model reads to him from a small booklet. The painter’s model, dressed in a white-and-gold gown and a small crown—who just a few minutes ago was playing the role of a queen—is now his intimate conversation partner. It is precisely the casual intimacy between the two figures and the apparent spontaneity of the moment that give the painting a personal and distinctly lively character. Wencker, who was born in Strasbourg in 1848 and enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1868, was a student of the famous academy professor and Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. In 1876, he won the Prix de Rome and subsequently spent several years as a scholarship recipient at the Académie de France in Rome. In addition to historical paintings, Wencker also painted religious compositions, portraits, and genre scenes, which repeatedly received awards at the Paris Salons. - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is listed in the catalog only in exceptional cases. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.