Chagrin d'Enfant

Henry Clay Frick purchased this painting from the Paris branch of M. Knoedler & Co. in August, 1899, after it had been exhibited earlier that year in he Salon of the Societe National des Beaux-Arts. (A fragment of the Salon's identification tag - number 599 - remains attached to the original, Art Nouveau frame.) This was Frick's second purchase of a work by Friant, a native of Alsace and student of the academic painter Alexandre Cabanel (1824-1889). By 1899, Friant, winner of the second Grand Prix de Rome in 1883 and of a gold medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889, was pursuing a successful career as both painter and etcher.