Charles-Emile-Auguste Durand, called Carolus-Duran

The artist's studio; sale: Galerie de l'Hôtel Majestic, Nice, March 9, 1935, lot 177, illustrated (as La Vision de saint Jérome)
Paris, Nouveau Drouot, December 16, 1985, lot 36, illustrated
Private Collection

Paris, Salon, 1883, no. 452
Ornans, Musée Courbet, Des Nus et des nues, ou les adventures de la Percheronne, May 24-October 1, 2003

C. Vento, Les Peintres de la Femme, Paris, 1888, pp. 290, 295
Arsène Alexandre, Carolus-Duran, Paris, 1903, p. 30
Otto Grautoff, "Carolus-Duran," Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Leipzig, 1912, vol. VI, p. 27
Ingres & Delacroix through Degas & Puvis de Chavannes: The Figure in French Art, 1880-1870, exh. cat., New York, 1975, p. 339
Carolus-Duran, 1837-1917, exh. cat., Lille and Toulouse, 2003, pp. 112, cited under no. 31; 125, cited under no. 38; 204, illustrated pp. 113, fig. 2 (photograph of painting in original state); 126, fig. 1

Lined; under UV: spots, strokes and areas of inpainting in background, four by one inch area of inpainting to the upper left of her red cloak, scattered spots through her cloak, six inch vertical line of inpainting to lower left of her cloak possibly to address repaired tear, two by one inch area of inpainting to bottom of her cloak, one inch diameter area of inpainting below her cloak, two by one inch area of inpainting to her knees, pindots of inpainting to her thighs and stomach, four inch line of inpainting beginning in her hair extending to her right cheek, pindots of inpainting in her hair, two inch diameter area of inpainting to cloak on right side by her hand, wide area of inpainting along lower left edge.
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Beyond the portraiture that established Carolus-Duran's reputation (a likeness of wife, La Dame au gant exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869 was bought by the State), he also exhibited paintings, landscapes, genre pictures and sculpture in the Salons for decades. Yet, Carolus-Duran's importance as an artist during his lifetime has been eclipsed by his role as the popular founder and director of one of the most innovative studios in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. This was a school, somewhat radical in its approach, where the emphasis in training was on color and not line. One of Carolus-Duran's American pupils, J. Alden Weir commented: "Carolus Duran, who is the great portrait painter of France of the present day, teaches his pupils still in a different way. He puts them in front of the living model with the brushes in their hands to represent the model as well as possible, making them draw and paint both at the same time."(Dorothy Weir Young, The Life and Letters of J. Alden Weir, New Haven, 1960, p. 28). The studio attracted many American students, many of whom were intrigued by Carolus Duran's non-traditional, anti-Gérôme teaching methods, with the most well-known (even at the time considered a rising star) being John Singer Sargent. 

Vision is emblematic of Carolus-Duran's art theories and technique—both as painter and teacher. With the present work he uses subdued shifts of light and dark and complementary color tones to create this evocative, dream-like composition with its pale nude hovering in the air, her scarlet cloak held against red tresses decorated with falling pink rosebuds. Vision, exhibited at the Salon of 1883, originally included at right the kneeling figure of Saint Jerome, to whom the young woman appears a tempting vision (for a photograph of the painting in its entirety as hung in the artist's studio see: Carolus-Duran, p. 297). It has yet to be determined why or how Saint Jerome was removed from the composition though the bold beauty of the female figure inspires intriguing theories. A smaller version of the present composition, signed and dated 1882, and known today as Spring, was likely completed in preparation for the present work.