Munier, Emil

Emile Munier was born in Paris on June 2, 1840 and lived with his family on 66 rue de Fosset (Saint-Marcel). His father, Pierre Francois Munier, was an upholstery artist in the Tapestry manufactory , and his mother, Maria Louise Carpentier, was a polisher in a cloth factory. Emile and his two brothers, Francois and Florimon, were talented artists and worked for some time in the Gobelins manufactory.

At the factory of Abel Lucas Münier he studied the profession of a draftsman, and he developed close relations with Lucas and his family. In 1861 he married the daughter of Lukas, Henrietta. In 1867, Henrietta gave birth to a son, Emile Henri. Six weeks after his birth, Henrietta, who suffered from severe rheumatism, died suddenly.

Sarzhin Ogran, a student of Lukas and a former close friend of Emil and Henrietta, attracted Emil; they got married in 1872. The couple had one child, a daughter, Marie-Louise, born in 1874.

During the 1860s, Munier received three medals at the National High School of Fine Arts , and in 1869 he exhibited at the Paris Salon .

He was an adherent of academic ideals and a follower of Bouguereau, whose work became an important source of inspiration for the young Münier's work. Artists became close friends, and Munier often visited Bouguereau's workshop; when it came to Munie, the latter called him "the Sage" or "The Sage of Mune". Another artist with whom Munier worked around 1869, was the designer of glass art, Emile Galle .

In 1871, Münier stopped work on the tapestry manufactory and devoted himself entirely to painting. In addition, he began teaching classes for adults in the evenings three times a week.

Leland Stanford Jr., the only child in the family of California Governor Leland Stanford and his wife Jane Stanford, died at the age of fifteen in 1884, and to perpetuate her son in the picture, Jane Stanford commissioned this work to Munier. The work, entitled “The Angel Comforts His Grieving Mother” (oil on canvas), depicts a boy who laid his hand on his mother’s shoulder, who returned to earth in the form of an angel, to reassure her. Currently, the picture is part of the exhibition at the Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University .

In 1885, Münier painted the picture “Three Friends” and exhibited it at the Paris Salon. This picture, representing a plump girl playing on her bed with a kitten and a dog, was so successful that it was reproduced in many forms and was used in advertising posters of a company producing soap. Thanks to this work, Émile Munier established himself as one of the painters depicting small children and their pets; Finally, the work was purchased by an American collector.

Among his many American patrons were Chapman H. Hyams and his wife, who were large collectors of nineteenth-century contemporary French painting, collecting works by artists such as Enner , Bouguereau, Jerome , Vinel and Schreier . Münier painted their portrait in 1889, and he, along with most of the collections collected by the spouses, is currently stored in the Art Museum of New Orleans.

During the 1890s, Munier continued to paint peasants and create paintings on mythological and religious themes; he also depicted animals, fishing scenes, landscapes and marinas . In many of his works, he used his children as a model; in particular, his daughter. In 1893, in the Paris Salon, he exhibited the “Spirit of the Falls” with a nymph naked, which differs little from the “Birth of Venus” Bouguereau.

In 1895, Münier wrote the work "Girl with kittens in a basket." A few weeks after he turned 55, on June 29, he died.

• "Dreaming Teresa" - a painting by Balthus, the composition of which is based on Emil Munier's "Sugar and Spices" (1879).

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  Her best friend, 1882

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  Breakfast, 1880

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  The girl with the dishes, 1882

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  Portrait of a young girl, 1874

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  Can I? 1881

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  Return from the market, 1873

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  Girl with a doll, 1881

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  Feeding the rabbits, 1888

• Mills, Cynthia (2014), "Afterlives", Beyond Grief: Sculpture and Wonder in the Gilded Age Cemetery (EBOOK), Smithsonian, ISBN 978-1-935623-38-0

• Émile Munier at the Art Renewal Center
• Munier Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
• Munier's Girls and Cats