Eisman-Semenowsky, Emile (Polish/French, 1857-1911 )

Very little is known about the life of the painter Emile Eisman-Semenowsky (1857-1911). Born in Poland, Eisman-Semenowsky immigrated to Paris in the early 1880s where he worked for the remainder of his career.

In Paris, Eisman-Semenowsky became the assistant of the Belgian painter Jan van Beers, from whom he learnt a great deal.  Eisman-Semenowsky quickly gained popularity among the French nobility, establishing himself as a painter of fashionable young Parisian women and reclining neoclassical beauties. However, Eisman-Semenowsky remains best known for his exceptional Orientalist portraits of women, particularly those painted in the 1890s depicting Algerian subject matter.