Adolphe Lalire (called La Lyre)

Galerie de Souzy, Paris

Unlined. There are three patches visible along the top register of reverse with the largest approximately 2 by 3 inches along with one patch below the bottom stretcher at right. One glued repair at center lower left. Thin vertical lines of craquellure throughout composition suggest the work had been rolled. Under UV: areas of softly brushed in painting throughout the majority of the figures' bodies, scattered spots in the sea and sky.
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A student of William Bouguereau, La Lyre came to be known as "the painter of sirens."  In many of his large scale compositions, La Lyre captured the mythological maidens, often fish-tailed, who lured sailors with their song.  Joining the sirensin the present work, children play with a bow and quiver of arrows while another winged figure, likely Cupid, holds tight to a slippery rock perhaps suggesting the danger of seduction and romance.