Portrait of Jean Ajalbert

c. 1893

Portrait of Jean Ajalbert, c. 1893. Eugène Carrière (French, 1849–1906). Charcoal with white chalk; sheet: 27.4 x 23.7 cm (10 13/16 x 9 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2009.116 This drawing is one of several portraits that Eugène Carrière created of the naturalist writer and art critic Jean Ajalbert. Both were part of the same Symbolist artistic and literary circles in Paris during the late 19th century. Portraiture was a favorite genre for Carrière, who often portrayed his friends and colleagues. Here, Ajalbert looks forward directly, seemingly in contrast with his otherwise hazy visage and surroundings. One of Eugène Carrière's portraits of Jean Ajalbert was translated to lithography and included as a frontispiece to his novel Sao Van Di (1905).