JULES DIDIER | SOCIÉTÉ PROTECTRICE DES ANIMAUX

Private collection, France (and sold: Sotheby's, Paris, June 16, 2016, lot 101, illustrated)

Acquired at the above sale

The present work, an allegory of the Société Protectrice des Animaux (SPA), which remains in practice today, may date from the later part of Jules Didier's career. A young vestal virgin is surrounded by a veritable Noah's Ark of animals both domestic and exotic. Didier family tradition holds that the present work may be related to a poster of the same subject produced for the SPA at the beginning of the twentieth century.

A pupil of Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and of the lithographer Jules Laurens (1825-1901) Didier entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1852. Five years later he won the Prix de Rome with Christ et la Samaritaine. Didier was active across many genres, from lithography — he illustrated with Gustave Doré a collection of short stories by the Countess of Ségur, Les nouvelles contes de fees, in 1896 — though his paintings of animals drew comparison to those of Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899).