Vibert French Artists in a Spanish Posada 1862 {1864} NGV [PA]

Vibert, Jehan Georges (1840-1902; French)
French Artists in a Spanish Posada (The Siesta) 1862
Oil on canvas, 73.4 x 99.4 cm
Purchased, 1864 (advice of Sir Charles Eastlake)
National Gallery of Victoria (p.301.8-1) 

This youthful work, with which Vibert debuted at the Paris Salon in 1863, helped make his name. It was one of the first works bought by the Commissioners of Fine Arts for Victoria, selected by Eastlake from a London exhibition.

Its Velazquez-influenced style may also be compared with early Manet.

Vibert subsequently became an academic painter with a curious specialization in the daily lives of monks.

Refs.

NGV 1879, p.7 (cited by Galbally 1992); NGV 1894, I. 38; NGV 1905, I.42 [£63] 

See Galbally & others, The First Collections (1992), pp.47-48 (cat.no.11), with further references; and Gott 19C (2003), p.28. For the artist, see Bénézit 14, pp.268-69 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehan_Georges_Vibert