Talk:La Circassienne au Bain

Temporary Absence of Illustration

An engraving of the described painting (out of copyright) will be added to this article, hopefully within the next few days, or just as soon as I've worked out how to upload a photo of it to Wikimedia commons and then assign it to the article (helpful tips welcome, thank you.) Also, I note that the category 'paintings by Merry-Joseph Blondel' does not appear to exist, even though there are several paintings by Blondel in commons - I'll look into that too. Hogarthianista (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Illustration now uploaded and in place Hogarthianista (talk) 15:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Please note that there is Category:Merry-Joseph Blondel and related sub-categories at commons. Thanks for uploading, anyway :) --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 16:21, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

'8 x 4 feet' Size of the painting question mark

Mauritz-Hakan Bjornstrom-Steffansson's claim form for compensation from the white star line (District Court of the United States, Southern district of New York, Claim by H. Bjornstrom-Steffanson - Exhibit A, 9th January 1913, US National Archives, New York.) describes the painting as "8 x 4 feet" in size; a description which is repeated in reference after reference, even though it is very unlikely to be an accurate description of the size of the painted canvas for several reasons. Firstly, it is not a height to width ratio which conforms to the norms of French figure painting of Blondel's or indeed any other post-Renaissance era. Secondly, it does not match the height to width ratio of any of the contemporaneous engravings of the painting (though these may have been altered slightly to suit the printer's needs, the alteration from a 2:1 ratio would have been extreme). And thirdly, it does not conform to the size or format of any full-sized, female, standing figure portrait by Blondel (verifiable by checking sizes of relevant Blondel paintings in the public domain, such as the many in his 'kings and queens of France' series at the Palace of Versailles).

All of Blondel's standing, full-sized female figure portraits conform to the standard French canvas format of F120 (figure 120 - 195cm x 130cm), within a margin of plus or minus 10cm. Quite simply, it seems to have been his preferred size format for standing figures (male figure formats are slightly larger, averaging 215cm x 140cm). It could be suggested, therefore, that the description "8 x 4 feet" on the claim form was nothing but a rough estimate by Bjornstrom-Steffansson (or even a clerk translating roughly from metric units to feet and inches). The claim form doesn't specify whether this was a description of the canvas size, the framed painting or the crate size. It could further be suggested, that one of Blondel's standard F120 female figure paintings, in a typical period frame (which could add as much as 30cm to the height) could very much have given the impression of being 8 feet tall. Hogarthianista (talk) 16:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

A large ornate frame of the period could easily have added 30cm or more on each of the four sides, I would have thought. I'm not sure whose responsibility the packing frame would have been. Martinevans123 (talk)

If one takes the etching as a guide - which would seem reasonable given that it was supposed to be a fairly accurate reproduction - the height of the painting is roughly 1.25% longer than the width. At 8 feet high, the painting would have been 6 1/2 feet wide; it would have been only 5 feet high to make a width of 4 feet. Even making adjustments for the frame, the packing materials and padding, and a wooden crate, it seems highly unlikely that the claim of 8 feet x 4 feet could be anything but a very rough estimate made by the owner or the claims agent. - Xenxax (talk) 22:13, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

ah-ha, maybe it was tiny! Martinevans123 (talk) 22:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)