The flower crown, dated 1840

Adolphe Roehn gives us a delicate, feminine painting with great pictorial finesse.

Oil on canvas
Signed Roehn fils and dated 1840 lower left on the edge of the bench.
Dimensions: 40,5 x 32,5 cm
With frame: 63,5 x 57 cm
 
Symbolism of the flower crown

An elegantly dressed young woman sits on a stone bench in a park. A woman behind her arranges a crown of fresh flowers in her hair in colors that match her pink and beige satin dress.
The flower chapel is not only an aesthetic or perfumed object that increases the grace of those who wear them around the head, it is also sometimes a carrier of hidden meaning. It can celebrate spring. This symbol of the rebirth of nature.
It is also an adornment that plays an important role in the games of love. Girls and young women have always worn the crown as a symbol of purity and fertility. The touching simplicity of the flower crown still seduces today with its delicacy and poetry.

A feminine painting, refined with great delicacy

Grace, delicacy, subtlety, refinement; the charm works in this painting. A very pretty light makes the satin of the dress shimmer and illuminates the faces. The work demonstrates technical mastery, particularly in the rendering of the fabrics, the delicacy of the faces, the foliage of the trees. The background is also worked, the two women being in a very beautiful wooded park, decorated with sculptures, fountain, flowers…

Bibliography

Son of the painter Adolphe Roehn, Jean-Alphonse Roehn entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris at an early age and became a pupil of Baron Gros and Jean-Baptiste Regnault.

He exhibited regularly at the Salon where he won a gold medal in 1827, specializing in genre scenes inspired by the Dutch Golden Age.

Robert Lefèvre painted his portrait (Versailles Palace).

Museums

• Paris, Orsay Museum: The Poacher, 1834,
• Dijon, Magnin Museum: The Drawing Lesson, circa 1827
• Rouen, Museum of Fine Arts: The Old Age Staff, circa 1852,
• Strasbourg, Museum of Fine Arts: The Painter and his model.
• Versailles, Palace of Versailles: The Merry Neighbor.
• Tarbes, Massey museum: Boissy d'Anglas presiding over the session of the Convention of 1st Prairial Year III, salutes the head of Feraud, deputy of the Hautes-Pyrénées.