The Salon
1826 to 1850
Medium
graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 22.1 × 15.5 cm (8 11/16 × 6 1/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Helena Gunnarsson Buhot Collection, Gift in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art
Accession Number
2017.199.20
Art Historical Context
Step into the refined world of 19th domesticity with *The Salon*, a captivating graphite drawing by French artist Félix-Hilaire Buhot, created between 1826 and 1850. Measuring a modest 22.1 × 15.5 cm on smooth wove paper, this intimate work (sheet: 8 11/16 × 6 1/8 in.) evokes the elegance of a French salon—a parlor space central to social gatherings, intellectual discourse, and artistic exchange during the Romantic and early Realist eras. Buhot's precise graphite lines likely sketch furnishings, light play, and atmospheric details, offering a window into bourgeois life amid France's cultural s...
About the Artist
Félix-Hilaire Buhot · 1847–1898
Félix-Hilaire Buhot was born on July 9, 1847, in Valognes, a small town in Normandy, France, into a modest family—his father a wine merchant and his mother a seller of women's clothes. Orphaned by age seven after losing both parents and his maternal grandmother, he was raised by relatives, including a godfather, and received an early introduction to drawing from his adopted mother's nephew. In 186...