Antique French oil painting of a woman with a parrot by Semenowsky

This superb oil on panel is by Emile Eisman-Semenowsky (1853-1918), a Russian-born artist who moved to Paris for work in the 1880s. There he established himself as a portrait painter, specialising in sentimentalised portraits of upper-class women.

In this charming picture, a woman in a black dress stands with her back to the viewer, her body facing towards a picturesque landscape scene. Rendered in blue and dusty pale pink, the sky illuminates the composition, establishing a calming overall tone. In the foreground the woman is framed by a blue fence and wooden arch, around which delicate pink flowers are woven and an ornate birdcage hangs. Inside the cage, the woman’s parrot sings to her.

The woman in this painting is dressed in a fashionable silk evening gown, inappropriate for life in a countryside setting, but the black fabric, combined with the vibrant red ribbon at her shoulder and the paleness of her exposed skin, may be a clever attempt to match the woman with the colouring of her crested parrot.

Presented in a giltwood frame, the painting is dedicated, signed, and dated in the lower left corner: 'à mon bon ami Gaspard Jacquet / Paris 1891 / Eisman Semenowsky'.

Panel: Height 56cm, width 38cm
Frame: Height 68cm, width 49.5cm, width 3cm