Wow! This painting is epic. While the little girl is not the focal point of this work, she certainly grabs your attention. This was a commissioned work for the apse of the Panthéon in Paris, where many famous Frenchmen are buried, including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Émile Zola. Actually this is not the full painting but only the Main (center) panel. I’m not crazy about the little girl’s face—it seems to me that the artist used an adult as the model because the eyes are too small and the nose is all wrong, but overall it’s a magnificent painting.
Jean-Paul Laurens – La mort de Sainte Geneviève (1877)
Jean-Paul Laurens – La mort de Sainte Geneviève (detail) (1877)