A scrupulous observer of la vie Parisienne, Jean Béraud was the quintessential chronicler of Belle Époque Paris. In the present work, he captures a well-known public spectacle of the period, the excited bustle of crowds attending the opening day at the Paris Salon. The Salon began in the early eighteenth century as a semi-private display of the works of recent graduates of the École des Beaux Arts. By the early nineteenth century, it had become a public exhibition at the Salon Carré of the Louvre, where hundreds of paintings selected by government-sponsored art juries were hung for view. The event became so popular that in 1855 it moved to the immense Palais de l'Industrie, built for that year's World's Fair - its imposing Gothic entrance looming over the avenue des Champs-Élysées (the building was destroyed in 1897; the same site is now the junction of the Avenue Winston Churchill).
[Sotheby’s, New York - Oil on canvas, 38.7 x 55.5 cm]