1904 Léo-Paul-Samuel Robert Symbolist Painting - Woman w/ Long-necked Lute

A reflective, if not melancholy, painting of a woman lost in thought with a long-necked folk art lute by the Swiss naturalist and symbolist painter, Leo Paul Samuel Robert. The piece is rendered in gouache on paper. Signed in the painting, "LP. Robert," and dated 1904. Dimensions: 19 3/4" x 26 1/2".

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Leo Paul Samuel Robert (1851-1923) was the most highly regarded Swiss naturalist artist at the turn of the century, and he was on the vanguard of the symbolist movement in the late 19th century. His "Zephyrs" painting (3rd picture, bottom) was presented in 1877 at the Paris Salon, won a gold medal, and is considered one of the earliest of the Symbolist movement, predating the major artistic output from the movement which did not get running until the 1890s. With his contemporary Eugène Burnand, he became one of Switzerland's most prominent artists in Paris. Robert was a member of the Federal Commission of Fine Arts between 1891 - 1897 and the Commission of the Gottfried Keller Foundation between 1894 - 1918. While other Swiss notables, such as Ferdinand Hodler, Carlos Schwabe, and Félix Vallotton, played a more highly influential role in the Symbolist movement, Robert was nonetheless considered a significant Swiss artist who was exceedingly religious (even to the point of becoming an ordained protestant minister at one point) and influential in his focus on pantheistic or allegorical representations of nature. In addition to his allegorical works, Leo Paul Samuel Robert is well known for his detailed and exhaustive paintings of ornithological (400+) and insect (caterpillars in particular, 500+) subjects, which were quite popular at the time and reproduced in multiple formats. Robert also provided the illustrations for the book Die schwarze Spinne (“The Black Spider”) by Jeremias Gotthelf (1797 - 1854); from which an original illustration was sold in 2012 (i.e., see 4th picture above). The artist's "Woman with a Harp" painting (2th picture above) featured prominently in a 2013 exhibition of Swiss Symbolist artists held at the Kunstmuseum Bern (see here: http://www.likeyou.com/en/node/36872 ). This is museum exhibition piece is rendered in the same medium as the purchased painting (i.e., gouache and graphite on vellum paper) with very similar harp/lute prop and subject matter.