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| "An Antique collector's Dachshund" | | |
In the spring of 1998, I drew a dachshund portrait that had a great success (you can see its story and enlarged image in the drawings gallery). As it was exhibited in the Paris Country-show, a very elegant American couple came to my stand. Monsieur was very fond of this dachshund portrait but Madame was crazy about the pencil portrait of a lady. |
 | Madame tried to convince Monsieur that I should draw a portrait of her. But Monsieur was only interested to commission me a portrait of his pet dog. So Madame tried to change his mind, saying that I should paint a portrait of her with the dachshund in her arm. Monsieur didn't even hear her. The scene was really amusing. |  | |
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As the dachshund seemed very young, I suggested to wait a year for his portrait. Thirteen months later, I arrived in their wonderful Parisian flat on Boulevard Saint Germain to take photos of the teckel. This flat was like Ali Baba's cave, full of treasures from around the world: Imari's porcelaines and chinas, tanagras statues, silver candelabras on the furnitures but also everywhere on the floor ... They had bought a huge castle in Georgia and were stocking all the furniture in Paris. I took a few photos of the young dachshund and came back home. In my workshop, thinking of this extraordinary flat, I had an idea. "I should paint the dog among these treasures". To explain my aim, I sketched the painting on a post-it note and phoned my client to take a new appointment. He loved the idea... Three months later, my portrait was finished. My photographer took photos of the painting and I sent one of them to my client. |
But as I was looking at the photo, I found that this painting was too smooth and didn't look like my usual work. So I went back to work and spent 6 more days engraving the golden bronze of the candlelabra, sharpening the shadows and accentuating the contrast of the overall painting. When my client saw the completed picture a month later, he exclaimed in French with his delicious American accent: "Oh! but it's 100 times more beautiful than on the photo !" You can imagine how happy I was. It's so easy to give pleasure ! Those words paid me for that 6 days. This is the photo before the 6 days... I don't have a photo of the finished painting. Too bad, isn't it ? |  | |
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 | Have a look at this watercolour portrait painted in june 2005 You 'll find interesting details or Follow the guide to see the naughty dog |  | |
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