Paul Edouard Rosset Granger (Vincennes 1853 - 1965 Paris)
Self-portrait with the scarer, circa 1893
Oil on canvas
75.5 x 61.5 cm
Signed lower right: E Rosset-Granger
Rosset-Granger began his training with Alexandre Cabanel and Alexis Joseph Mazerolles. He also received advice from Edouard Dubufe, the father of his friend Guillaume whom he had met at the Beaux-Arts and to whom he would remain very close throughout his life. His artistic style readily lent itself to major decoration works, in which he excelled: burgher houses and also public buildings such as the Opéra de Paris (under the direction of Mazerolles) in 1879, the Train Bleu restaurant in the Gare de Lyon in 1900 and, again, the town hall in Saint-Mandé from 1906 to 1909 with his “brother”, Guillaume Dubufe. Easel paintings were not neglected either, however. He made his debut at the 1878 Salon with portraits and mythological works and was honoured twice in 1889 and 1890.
Our painting was presented at the 1893 Salon du Champs de Mars, under the title “La Boule”[1] . Rosset- Granger is depicted with the scenery around him reflected in a ball designed to be a bird-scarer.This original subject led to him being recognised by many visitors such as André Marty, who described it thus in La Cocarde: “A ball from a bourgeois garden reflecting an entire scene and which will delight the Sunday public”[2]. More than an amusing image, however, the artist is joining a long tradition of portraying a convex mirror image. Like a descendant of Van Eyck or Parmigianino, he adds the challenge of rendering the curves of the image to the difficulty of a self-portrait.
[1] No. 911
[2] La Cocarde, May 9, 1893, Le Salon du Champs de Mars, Text by André Marty, Page2, Galerie III.
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