I really find this female form and this figure study beautiful, ideal, womanly, feminine, alluring, and sensual. As Mary Magdalene in the Grotto was painted in 1876, my taste in what is beautiful a beautiful woman’s body is surely well over a century out of date. I consider this figure study to be both gorgeous and ideal in both shape and proportion. Lovely.
Jules Joseph Lefebvre From Wikipedia
Jules Joseph Lefebvre (Tournan 1836 – Paris 1911) was a French figure painter.
Entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts en 1852, and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet. Lefebvre won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. In 1891, he became a memeber of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts
He was an instructor at the Académie Julian in Paris. He is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. One of his famous students was the Scottish born landscape painter William Hart. Georges Rochegrosse and John Noble Barlow were also his pupils. He was long a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.
His paintings are usually single figures of beautiful women.
Among his best portraits were those of M. L. Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874). Among his many decorations were a first-class medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and the medal of honor in 1886. He was a Commander of the Legion of Honor and a member of the Institute.
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the world needs smart men like you <3 thanx from a teenage girl who was feeling terrible about herself.