Secret Love

Description of the artwork

Dated 1857, this painting comes at a key moment in the life and work of Joseph Coomans. Arriving in the Naples region in 1856 after contracting cholera on the battlefields of Crimea a year earlier, he married Adélaïde Lacroix, who gave him two daughters. The painter remained very close to his daughters Heva and Diana, who both became painters, perpetuating their father's style.
During this period, Coomans regained a taste for life and painting. He rediscovered happiness and lightness, having experienced the grief of losing his first wife and the mother of his son in 1848, and life with the military in the Crimea.
His new-found happiness, combined with the bucolic atmosphere of Naples and the frescoes of Pompeii, influenced Coomans towards a stylistic renewal that would make him one of the masters of the so-called Pompeian painting presented at the various Salons from 1857 onwards. “L'orgie des philistins dans le temple de Dragon”, the first painting in this style to be exhibited at the Salon des Beaux-Arts in Paris that year, met with critical acclaim as one of the spearheads of this new artistic movement. From the same year, our painting is at the confluence of the Orientalist and Pompeian styles that would make the painter's reputation.

In 1862, a painting by Coomans was presented under the title “Brune et Blonde” at the Exposition des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse. This is most probably our painting. This pivotal work is nourished by the Romantic, Oriental and Pompeian influences that characterize the painter's work.

Origin

Private Collection, Germany (1983 acquired at Neumeister)